Wild Fish Capture and Bycatch Welfare

Wild fish capture methods vary enormously in their welfare impact, from near-instant death through certain methods to prolonged, painful suffocation during sorting and discarding operations.

Key Facts

Trawling nets can hold fish for hours before retrieval, during which time fish experience progressive hypoxia and pressure changes.
Discarded bycatch fish — those returned alive to the sea — survive at widely varying rates depending on species and handling.
Line-caught fish typically experience shorter capture times and less injury than net-caught fish of the same species.
Many commercial fisheries operate with essentially no welfare standards for fish at point of capture.
The EU Landing Obligation, intended to reduce discarding, has welfare trade-offs as some species survive discard better than retention.

Welfare Considerations

Wild fish capture represents one of the largest-scale sources of animal suffering on Earth, involving tens of billions of individual sentient animals each year. The welfare standards applied to fish at capture are essentially zero in most fisheries — no stunning, no speed-of-death requirements, no assessment of fish suffering during sorting or processing. Progressive welfare improvement in this sector faces enormous practical challenges but begins with regulatory acknowledgment that fish welfare during capture is a legitimate concern.

What You Can Do

Choose line-caught fish where available as a generally lower-welfare-impact option than net-caught.
Support fisheries certification schemes that are beginning to incorporate welfare criteria.
Reduce wild-caught fish consumption to reduce the scale of capture-related suffering.
Advocate for national fisheries regulations to include fish welfare considerations in capture method assessments.