Seabird bycatch in longline and trawl fisheries kills hundreds of thousands of albatrosses and petrels annually, threatening populations and causing significant individual suffering.
Seabird bycatch causes drowning — a prolonged and distressing death — in species whose natural behaviours make them vulnerable to fishing gear. The scale of mortality is causing population-level declines in the world's most wide-ranging birds. The availability of highly effective and inexpensive mitigation measures makes continued high bycatch rates inexcusable. Compliance with bycatch mitigation requirements is uneven, and enforcement at sea is challenging. Consumer certification choices represent one of the few consumer levers available for this issue.