Sea Turtle Bycatch: Welfare Impacts and Mitigation in Fishing Gear

Sea turtle bycatch causes thousands of deaths and injuries annually. Turtle excluder devices, circle hooks and fishing practice reforms significantly reduce these welfare harms.

Key Facts

An estimated 250,000 sea turtles are accidentally caught in fishing gear each year.
Longline fisheries targeting tuna and swordfish cause significant sea turtle bycatch globally.
Trawl fisheries entangle turtles, causing drowning when animals cannot surface to breathe.
Turtle excluder devices (TEDs) in trawl nets allow turtles to escape while retaining target catch.
Circle hooks rather than J-hooks reduce sea turtle bycatch in longline fisheries by up to 90%.
Post-capture handling protocols that allow turtles to recover before release improve survival rates.

Welfare Considerations

Sea turtle bycatch causes acute suffering through entanglement, hook ingestion, propeller injuries and drowning. Animals that survive capture experience stress, physical injury and physiological compromise that may result in delayed death after apparent recovery. The scale of bycatch across global fisheries represents a massive, largely preventable welfare impact on populations already threatened by other human activities. Mitigation measures including TEDs and circle hooks are proven, affordable and in many cases already mandatory — enforcement and uptake remain the primary barriers to reducing this welfare problem.

What You Can Do

Choose seafood certified under schemes that require bycatch reduction measures.
Support enforcement of TED requirements in shrimp trawl fisheries worldwide.
Advocate for mandatory circle hook requirements in longline fisheries targeting large pelagics.
Donate to sea turtle rescue and rehabilitation programmes that treat bycatch survivors.
Learn to recognise and report injured sea turtles to authorities for professional assistance.