Batoid fish including rays and skates are frequently caught as bycatch in bottom trawl fisheries, suffering injury from capture and discarding practices that cause significant individual welfare harm.
Rays and skates caught in bottom trawls experience barotrauma from rapid pressure changes, crushing by other catch, and injury during discard processes. Their slow growth, late maturity, and low reproductive rates make them particularly vulnerable to population-level harm from bycatch. Individual welfare harm is compounded by conservation concern. Modified fishing gear including specialized trawl designs and avoidance of known batoid aggregation areas reduces both welfare harm and population impacts simultaneously.