Hundreds of thousands of seabirds — including endangered albatrosses — are killed annually in longline fishing gear; proven mitigation measures can dramatically reduce this toll.
Seabird bycatch causes both conservation harm and significant individual suffering. Albatrosses and petrels caught on longline hooks experience traumatic injury and drowning — suffering that is entirely preventable with available mitigation technology. Tori lines, hook weighting, and night setting are inexpensive, effective, and proven — the barrier to adoption is compliance monitoring, not technology. Consumer certification through schemes that require seabird mitigation verification, combined with stronger Regional Fisheries Management Organization enforcement, can systematically drive adoption and protect hundreds of thousands of individual birds annually.