Longline fishing in international waters causes tens of thousands of seabird deaths annually, with albatrosses and petrels particularly vulnerable to baited hook capture.
Drowning in longline gear causes acute suffering for individual birds. At the population level, the loss of breeding adults in long-lived species like albatrosses cascades into colony decline and the welfare loss of orphaned chicks. The success of mitigation measures in regulated fisheries demonstrates that this problem is solvable with political will.