Wild Salmon Bycatch: Welfare Costs of Unintended Capture

Wild salmon are caught as bycatch in commercial fisheries targeting other species. The welfare impacts of bycatch are often overlooked in sustainability discussions.

Key Facts

Bycatch refers to non-target species caught unintentionally during commercial fishing operations.
Salmon migrate predictably and can be captured as bycatch in trawls, gillnets, and longlines targeting other species.
North Pacific salmon runs, including coho, chinook, and sockeye, face bycatch pressure from pollock trawls in the Bering Sea.
Bycatch salmon are often dead or dying when discarded, having suffered barotrauma, physical injury, and exhaustion in fishing gear.
Measures to reduce salmon bycatch include time-area closures, excluder devices, and bycatch caps enforced through fishery monitoring.
The US North Pacific Fishery Management Council has implemented some of the most robust salmon bycatch management systems globally.
Gillnet bycatch is particularly damaging: salmon and other species become entangled and drown or suffocate over extended periods.
Bycatch discards have significant welfare implications: fish returned to the water often die from injuries sustained in the gear.

Welfare Considerations

Salmon bycatch is an intersection of conservation and welfare concerns. Wild salmon caught unintentionally in commercial fisheries suffer the same range of bycatch harms as any fish: barotrauma from rapid pressure changes as trawls are hauled, physical injury from gear and handling, exhaustion from struggling against capture, and ultimately death — either during capture or after discard. Unlike target species, bycatch salmon receive no commercial value and their deaths are essentially waste. The welfare case for bycatch reduction measures — technical solutions to allow salmon to escape gear, temporal closures during migration peaks, and bycatch caps — is strong and complementary to the conservation case. Consumer choices of fishery-certified seafood create demand for better-managed fisheries with lower bycatch.

What You Can Do

Choose seafood certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) or equivalent with bycatch provisions.
Support fishery management policies that set and enforce bycatch caps for salmon.
Advocate for expansion of time-area closures during salmon migration peaks.
Support research into selective fishing technologies that reduce salmon bycatch.
Reduce consumption of seafood from fisheries with poor bycatch management records.
Engage with fisheries management consultations when they are open for public comment.