Bycatch of marine turtles in fishing gear kills tens of thousands of animals annually and is the leading threat to sea turtle recovery. Fishing gear modifications and regulations offer the most direct conservation path.
Sea turtles drowned in fishing gear experience the acute welfare suffering of asphyxiation over the minutes before death. Turtles caught on longline hooks and brought up alive may have hooks embedded in their throat or stomach that cause pain and internal damage. The scale of this bycatch — tens of thousands of individuals annually from populations already reduced by habitat loss, hunting, and climate change — represents both a conservation crisis and a welfare catastrophe. The solutions exist: circle hooks that reduce likelihood of deep-hooking, TEDs that allow turtles to escape trawl nets, and modified net designs that reduce gill entanglement. The barrier is primarily economic and regulatory rather than technical.