Whales, dolphins, and porpoises are killed by the tens of thousands annually through entanglement in fishing gear and ship strikes, with significant welfare implications for conscious marine mammals.
Cetacean entanglement causes profound welfare harm to highly intelligent, conscious animals. Dolphins drowning in gillnets experience acute suffocation. Large whales entangled in rope drag gear for months, with rope cutting into flesh, causing infected wounds and exhaustion from towing extra weight. The welfare scale — hundreds of thousands of cetaceans annually — combined with the cognitive and emotional complexity of these animals makes entanglement one of the most significant welfare harms in global fisheries. Proven mitigation technologies exist; the barrier is economic and regulatory.