Seabirds including albatrosses, petrels, and puffins are caught as bycatch in longline and trawl fisheries worldwide. Their welfare during capture and mortality represents a significant but often overlooked fisheries welfare problem.
Seabird bycatch welfare involves two dimensions: the immediate suffering of capture — drowning in longlines, cable strikes, disorientation and panic in net situations — and the prolonged suffering of birds that survive initial capture but die later from injuries. Both are preventable. The mitigation measures are well-established and increasingly mandatory in regulated fisheries: tori lines for surface-set longlines, underwater setting of baited hooks, net pinger equivalents, and modified trawl cable designs all significantly reduce bycatch rates. The welfare and conservation cases are completely aligned: seabirds caught as bycatch suffer individually, and the cumulative bycatch mortality is driving multiple species toward extinction. Unlike many welfare-conservation trade-offs, this one has clear, achievable, and economically modest technical solutions.