Shark conservation has successfully reduced finning, but wider welfare threats from bycatch, direct fishing for meat and habitat degradation require broader approaches.
Shark welfare extends beyond finning campaigns to the broader experience of being caught, handled and killed in fisheries. Being finned alive is a horrific welfare experience, but sharks caught and killed for their meat also experience capture stress, hypoxia and the welfare impacts of handling and killing methods. The welfare and conservation cases for shark protection align: recovering populations requires reducing all fishing mortality, and reducing all fishing mortality reduces the welfare costs of capture. Species that are slow to reproduce are particularly vulnerable - welfare investment in shark protection has enormous per-individual value because each shark that avoids capture may live for decades.