Commercial fishing kills trillions of wild fish annually using methods that may cause significant suffering. Understanding welfare impacts guides choices about fish consumption and policy advocacy.
Wild fish welfare in commercial fisheries is an enormous but difficult welfare problem. The scale is staggering and the individual welfare interventions feasible at sea are limited. Trawling causes barotrauma from rapid pressure changes as fish are pulled from depth, crushing injuries from net pressure, and extended suffocation on deck. Longline fish experience prolonged stress during hours of entanglement. The most feasible welfare improvements involve reducing capture time, improving onboard slaughter speed, and transitioning to methods with lower capture stress. Consumer and regulatory pressure on fishing industry welfare practices is constrained by the difficulty of monitoring and verifying welfare at sea.