Humpback whales become entangled in fishing gear causing serious injury and slow death. Disentanglement operations save individual lives but broader fishing practice reform is needed.
Whale entanglement causes prolonged, severe suffering that is among the most welfare-significant outcomes of commercial fishing. Whales caught in pot fishing lines may drag heavy gear for weeks to months, experiencing progressive tissue necrosis at contact points, swimming difficulty, respiratory stress from altered body position, and eventual exhaustion and death. The disentanglement response — while valuable for saving individual animals — addresses symptoms rather than causes. Ropeless fishing gear that uses acoustic releases to retrieve pots without surface lines represents a genuine technological solution to entanglement. The transition requires capital investment and regulatory support, but the welfare benefits — preventing months of extreme suffering in intelligent, long-lived mammals — are enormous.