Seabirds including albatrosses face devastating bycatch mortality from longline fishing that causes individual suffering and threatens multiple species with extinction.
Seabirds killed as longline bycatch drown, often struggling against the line and hook before death. The combination of drowning and the physical trauma of hook penetration causes significant suffering before death. Given albatross lifespans and breeding biology, each individual killed represents decades of reproductive potential lost. The suffering of individual birds and the catastrophic population decline are both preventable - the technology and protocols to achieve near-zero seabird bycatch exist and have been demonstrated at scale. The continued failure to mandate these measures in all longline fisheries is an ongoing welfare and conservation failure.