US to ban seafood imports tied to deadly bycatch of whales, dolphins, and other marine animals
Over half a million marine animals are caught and killed in fishing gear every year as unintentional “bycatch”.
A seal sleeping on a fishing net. Seals are among the “non-target” marine animals who can be caught and killed by indiscriminate fishing methods like fishing nets.
The United States will stop importing seafood that is tied to the deadly bycatch of marine mammals.
Bycatch is an industry term used for marine animals caught unintentionally by commercial fishing operations. For example, a modern trawler will drag a huge net along a seabed and catch almost everything in its path. While this technique may be efficient for the company catching the targeted species, it can also capture many non-targeted species.
Figures suggest that more than 650,000 marine animals including whales, dolphins, and seals are killed as bycatch every year. The issue is so widespread that conservationists say that bycatch is the greatest conservation threat to marine mammal populations worldwide.
Now, the US government has agreed to halt all seafood imports that do not meet US standards for protecting marine mammals from bycatch. The seafood ban, which will go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026, follows a lawsuit filed against various US government departments from a coalition of conservation groups including the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Centre for Biological Diversity.
“This settlement marks a significant step forward for marine mammal welfare,” said Georgia Hancock, a director and senior attorney for the Animal Welfare Institute, one of the groups that filed the initial lawsuit. “Bycatch not only affects marine mammal populations but also raises serious animal welfare concerns. While most animals entangled in fishing gear die by drowning, those who escape often suffer prolonged injuries, such as cuts, broken bones, or amputations, and die weeks or months after their entanglement.”
As the world’s largest importer of seafood, the US is positioned to play a major role in the fight against bycatch. The country imports more than $25.5 billion dollars-worth of fish each year, including shrimp, tuna, and other finfish from more than 130 nations.
Campaign groups say that action must be taken to tackle the fishing industry and bycatch in order to protect the ocean’s marine animals - including endangered species at risk of extinction.
Entanglement in fishing gear and “ghost nets” - fishing equipment which is lost or abandoned in the sea - is negatively impacting species who already face multiple other threats.
This includes the endangered right whale: 86 percent of the known population of this species has been entangled in fishing gear at least once between 2017-2021, according to a report by the World Wildlife Fund.
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