Sharks face severe population declines from targeted fishing for fins, meat, and liver oil, alongside massive bycatch mortality. Understanding the welfare dimensions of shark fishing informs conservation and policy priorities.
Shark welfare considerations intersect with urgent conservation needs. The suffering involved in shark fishing is significant: longline-caught sharks may struggle against hooks for hours; sharks finned at sea and returned to the water die slowly over days through blood loss, organ failure, and predation; bycatch sharks hauled aboard trawlers experience hypoxia and physical trauma. The welfare significance of these deaths depends partly on the evidence for shark sentience — which, while less developed than for mammals, is sufficient to conclude that sharks likely experience significant distress during capture and death. The conservation urgency is severe: we are removing apex predators from marine ecosystems at rates that threaten ecosystem collapse. Welfare reform and conservation policy are aligned: ending shark finning, reducing longline bycatch, and creating shark sanctuaries serve both goals simultaneously.