Bycatch is the indiscriminate capture and often killing of marine animals by commercial fishing vessels. These vessels target only specific species, yet the result is the demise of countless others. 

While it's hard to estimate the full impacts of bycatch, we know the scale is immense. Wherever there is commercial fishing, there is bycatch. 

It is a hidden but devastating issue that kills endangered animals, leads to overfishing and damages the entire ocean ecosystem. 

Advancements in modern fishing gear have increased the take of desired fish species – with nets and longlines covering vast swathes of the ocean at any one time. These fishing methods are highly unselective, and a heartbreaking amount of other marine life such as whales, dolphins, turtles, rays and seabirds are hauled up and then discarded overboard, often dead or dying.

Colossal nets are dragged across the seabed, catching almost everything in their path, destroying the marine ecosystem and trapping marine life. Fishing lines carrying thousands of deadly hooks are set across areas of ocean spanning many kilometres, creating walls of death for precious ocean life. 

The problem becomes even more acute in Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) Fishing cases, where fishing regulations on net mesh sizes, quotas, permitted fishing areas, and measures to mitigate bycatch may be completely ignored. 

It is estimated 300,000 whales and dolphins are killed by entanglement in fishing gear each year - but due to a lack of enforcement, only a fraction are ever recorded. There is no clear consensus across the globe about what counts as an entanglement, and what gets included - or, more importantly, excluded -  in official reports. These numbers often mask the scale of the problem. So, while this number is already devastating, it could just be the tip of the iceberg.