Commercial fishing kills hundreds of billions of fish annually, and the welfare of individual fish during capture and death deserves consideration alongside sustainability concerns.
The sheer number of fish killed in commercial fisheries means that even small per-fish welfare improvements would have enormous aggregate impact. Fish experiencing trawling die slowly from asphyxiation, pressure, and physical injury. Improving harvest methods to minimize conscious suffering — rapid physical trauma, carbon dioxide stunning, or ice slurry for certain species — delivers welfare benefits at a scale that dwarfs interventions in any other animal sector.