Commercial fishing bycatch - the incidental capture of non-target species - kills hundreds of millions of animals annually including seabirds, marine mammals, sea turtles and non-target fish. Mitigation technology exists but adoption is incomplete.
Bycatch causes both population-level conservation damage and individual animal welfare harm. Animals entangled in gear experience prolonged struggling, exhaustion, physical injury and drowning. Seabirds that dive for baited hooks experience barotrauma (pressure injury) from being dragged deep by sinking lines. Sea turtles entangled in trawl nets drown within minutes. The welfare cost across hundreds of millions of animals annually is enormous and largely invisible because it occurs out of sight in the ocean. Mitigation technology - turtle excluder devices, circle hooks, bird-scaring lines, pingers - works, is affordable and is already required in some fisheries; universal adoption is a welfare imperative.