On 10th June 2026, a new report revealed that thousands of protected marine animals in British waters are being killed every year as unintended victims of commercial fishing (bycatch).
The report, titled “Hidden in the haul: The true scale of bycatch,” produced by Wildlife and Countryside Link, estimates that more than 1,000 harbour porpoises and common dolphins, 10,000 seabirds, 500 seals, six humpback whales, 30 minke whales, over 1,000 endangered Atlantic salmons, and 120 tonnes of protected sharks, skates, and rays are killed annually as bycatch in UK waters. These figures are extrapolated from limited monitoring data, with only 0.05% of dredging vessels currently recording bycatch, so conservationists warn the real toll is likely far higher.
Much of the damage is linked to high‑impact fishing gear, including bottom trawlers and dredgers dragging heavy equipment across the seabed, and to static gillnets in English waters that entangle seabirds such as puffins, gannets, and razorbills when they dive for food. Research cited in the report notes that gillnets are responsible for hundreds of thousands of seabird deaths around the world every year.
Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, said to the Guardian, “From razorbills and dolphins to endangered salmon and sharks, the scale of destruction exposed in this report is shocking, with animals dying in awful and unnecessary ways… The government mustn’t let these terrible losses continue. To protect marine wildlife, Ministers must finally deliver strong bycatch action plans, backed by strict mandatory monitoring and enforcement, before more wildlife is pushed closer to extinction.”
The report concludes that cetacean bycatch is a key reason the UK is failing to achieve good environmental status in some seas and calls for remote electronic monitoring on all vessels, including smaller boats under 10 metres, which are said to be responsible for a large share of bycatch. It also highlights successful trials, such as small‑scale fishers in Filey Bay reducing seabird bycatch from about 700 birds a year to only a handful, and the use of weighted creel ropes in Scotland to cut whale entanglements.
