Hammerhead sharks face severe welfare and conservation crises from targeted finning and incidental bycatch across the world's tropical and subtropical oceans.
Shark finning causes extreme suffering: a finned shark, still conscious, sinks helplessly and dies over hours. Bycatch in tuna and billfish longlines causes stress, physical injury, and death through exhaustion and asphyxiation. Even when released, stressed sharks die at sea from physiological stress. The scale of mortality represents one of the most severe wildlife welfare problems in the marine environment, with tens of millions of sharks killed annually.