Sharks face enormous welfare threats from targeted and incidental fishing, including the practice of shark finning. Understanding these impacts drives advocacy for international regulation.
Shark welfare combines acute suffering from fishing interactions with population-level conservation crisis. Finned sharks experience prolonged suffering - removed of fins and returned to the sea, they cannot swim effectively and die over hours from drowning or predation. Even in fisheries without finning, bycatch sharks suffer handling stress, hook injuries, and exhaustion from fighting fishing gear before death or release. The conservation and welfare cases are aligned: the same regulatory changes - fins-naturally-attached requirements, bycatch reduction technology, and fishing effort limits - serve both goals. Consumer seafood choices that support certified low-bycatch fisheries help reduce the scale of this harm.