Commercial wild capture fishing currently produces total annual global catches of approximately 90-100 million tonnes, equating to 1.1 to 2.2 trillion individual aquatic wild animals. There is now a large body of scientific evidence demonstrating that commercial fishing practices can be severely stressful and injurious for animals in both retained and released catches. However, despite the scale and severity, wild animal welfare in commercial catches remains under-researched and is rarely promoted within fisheries management. With growing evidence that the introduction of welfare-responsible fishing practices can lead to improvements in sustainability, product quality and shelf-life, in addition to the ethical standing of the fishing industry; the need to unify efforts to implement these has been recognised by some stakeholders.
This recognition has led to the establishment of the Catch Welfare Platform, funded by Open Philanthropy, to expedite the transition in world fisheries toward practices and technologies that improve the welfare of the catch throughout the entire capture process, including post-capture slaughter.
The substantial challenges to the introduction of catch welfare to commercial wild capture fisheries include:
-characterising the hazards and risks facing animals during capture;
-defining the scientific principles and tools for implementing good catch welfare;
-understanding the technical and socio-economic pathways to introducing welfare responsible fishing practices;
-facilitating a better understanding of the benefits of good catch welfare amongst stakeholders and wider society through transparent and balanced communication, and engaging education.
Catch Welfare has established and coordinates a network of multi-disciplinary teams, comprised of innovators from the fishing and technology industries, research institutes and regulatory authorities to address these critical challenges. Examples of the work being carried out by Catch Welfare members will be showcased.