Harbour porpoises are one of the UK's most common cetaceans but face significant bycatch mortality in gill nets, with acoustic deterrents offering a welfare solution.
Harbour porpoise bycatch involves drowning in fishing nets, a distressing and prolonged death for an air-breathing marine mammal. Entangled porpoises exhaust themselves attempting to escape before losing consciousness. The welfare intervention - pingers - is highly effective, inexpensive, and has minimal impact on target species catch rates. The gap between the available solution and its consistent implementation represents a preventable welfare failure at scale.