Marine Mammal Bycatch Reduction | Animal Welfare Hub

Marine mammal bycatch — the incidental capture and drowning of dolphins, porpoises, whales, and seals in fishing gear — kills hundreds of thousands of animals annually and represents one of the greatest marine welfare problems.

Key Facts

Bycatch is the leading direct human cause of marine mammal mortality globally, killing an estimated 300,000 cetaceans each year.
Gillnets are responsible for the majority of marine mammal bycatch and pose a particular threat to small cetaceans and endangered species.
The vaquita porpoise, now numbering fewer than 20 individuals, faces extinction almost entirely due to gillnet bycatch.
Acoustic pingers attached to nets reduce dolphin and porpoise bycatch by 70-90% in some fisheries.
Circle hooks and modified longline configurations reduce sea turtle bycatch while maintaining target species catch rates.

Welfare Considerations

Entanglement in fishing gear causes a prolonged and distressing death by drowning for air-breathing marine mammals. The scale of this mortality is difficult to quantify precisely but is clearly enormous, involving tens of thousands of individual animals experiencing extreme suffering across all ocean basins every year. Practical mitigation measures exist and their implementation is a high-priority welfare and conservation intervention.

What You Can Do

Choose seafood certified by fisheries that have committed to bycatch monitoring and mitigation, such as MSC-certified products.
Support organizations such as Whale and Dolphin Conservation and Ocean Alliance working on bycatch reduction.
Advocate for mandatory deployment of acoustic pingers and bycatch observer programmes in high-risk fisheries.
Reduce your seafood consumption or shift toward lower-bycatch species to reduce demand pressure on problematic fisheries.