Protecting Ocean Wildlife

Now available: The Bycatch Solutions Hub

The Hub is a first-of-its-kind tool just for the seafood industry, highlighting voluntary, industry-led adoption of best practices and innovations to protect ocean wildlife.

Sustainable seafood means reducing the harm from fishing to sharks, marine mammals, sea turtles, and seabirds.

Hundreds of thousands of sharks, whales and dolphins, sea turtles, and seabirds are harmed or killed in commercial fishing each year. “Bycatch,” the catch of non-target species, is the biggest, single threat to the sustainability of marine fisheries.

There are practical solutions

Key strategies for reducing bycatch include:

Protecting Ocean Wildlife logo
Sea turtle and shark swimming over reef with fish

Take the Pledge!

Join with other industry leaders and sign the Protecting Ocean Wildlife Pledge, committing to do your part to reduce bycatch of vulnerable marine wildlife in commercial fisheries.

Read the Pledge here

Gear Innovation in Lobster and Crab Fisheries

Ashored ropeless gear
Gear Innovation

The adoption of ropeless, or on-demand, fishing technologies can substantially reduce the risk of entanglement for critically endangered marine mammals, and allow fishing and whales to co-exist.

Reducing bycatch in longline tuna fisheries

Tuna bycatch in WCPO research summary
Reducing bycatch in Pacific Ocean longline tuna fisheries

New research from SFP highlights the impacts of tuna longline fishing on vulnerable ocean wildlife in the Western Central Pacific Ocean and recommends actions for buyers of longline-caught tuna.

Solve My Bycatch Problem tool

Solve my bycatch problem tool
Solve My Bycatch Problem Tool

Our interactive Solve My Bycatch Problem tool allows users to find and evaluate various bycatch solutions, based on their relevance to specific species, effectiveness, ease of implementation, and cost.

Bycatch Audits

asda bycatch audit top
Bycatch Audits

SFP partners with Birdlife International and Whale and Dolphin Conservation to conduct bycatch audits of major retailers’ seafood supply chains, to identify those source fisheries that present significant bycatch risks and identify actions the retailers can take to address those risks.

Why retailers should care about bycatch

Bycatch threatens seafood retailers and the entire supply chain.
  • Seafood production contributing to the decline of wildlife violates sustainable sourcing and conservation commitments. 
  • Engaging in practices that harm ocean wildlife generates negative reactions, unwanted public attention, and scrutiny by policy makers. 
  • Consumers care about conservation. Public opinion research shows shoppers overwhelmingly think retailers should make sure their seafood does not harm ocean wildlife — especially getting producers to use less damaging ways to fish. 

Highlights

What Can I Do?

Learn more about how you can help protect ocean wildlife and reduce bycatch in fisheries.