Sharks caught in commercial fisheries experience significant welfare harms including stress, exhaustion, and often brutal killing practices requiring reform.
Shark welfare in commercial fisheries receives less attention than their conservation status, yet the welfare harms are significant and occur at massive scale. Extended longline capture causes exhaustion, struggle-related injury and physiological stress over hours. Shark finning, where banned, represents extreme welfare harm - sharks thrown back into the sea without fins drown slowly over days. Even where whole sharks are landed, many die slowly on deck without humane killing. The welfare case for reformed shark fishing practices parallels the conservation case - reducing bycatch, using more humane handling, and implementing instantaneous killing methods.