Seabirds face multiple human-caused threats including longline bycatch, plastic ingestion, oil pollution and climate-driven prey shifts. Understanding their welfare dimensions motivates effective conservation response.
Seabird welfare harms are diverse and largely invisible to the general public. An albatross drowning on a longline hook dies alone in the open ocean; a puffin chick starving because sand eels have moved north dies in a burrow on a remote island; a gannet dying from plastic-induced gut obstruction is rarely observed or counted. The aggregate welfare harm to seabirds from human activities - longline bycatch, plastic pollution, oil spills and climate change - is enormous and chronic. Seabird populations are among the most rapidly declining vertebrate groups on Earth, and the individual welfare harms driving these declines deserve recognition alongside the species conservation concerns.