Our goals

The welfare of wild-caught fishes has been overlooked in practice, research, advocacy, and policy. The Carefish/catch project aims to promote better fishing standards, by addressing 5 main goals:

• assess global animal welfare impacts in fisheries
• identify the potential of reducing animal suffering in various fishing methods and species
• analyse the economic and social feasibility of the improvements suggested
• raise problem and solution awareness in general and specific audiences
• implement welfare guidelines into the Friend of the Sea fisheries certification scheme

Our outreach

To establish welfare standards in fisheries, we devise assessments to identify keypoints of welfare hazards and suggest improvements to reduce suffering of individuals in specific fishing methods.

Our welfare assessment reports in fisheries:

• Gillnet and trammel net (report | press release )
• Purse seine (report | press release )
• Pots and Traps (report | press release )
• Longline (report | press release )
• Pole and line (report | press release )

Some Summer Shoal 2023 event participants formulated their thoughts and ideas for better fish welfare. The result is an informal yet substantial collection of suggestions, principles, goals, and insights in twelve essays, the Whitepaper on Fish Welfare , released in August 2024.

• Whitepaper on Fish Welfare

Our team

The international consortium responsible for this project is formed by

• fair-fish international
• FishEthoGroup
• Friend of the Sea
• Centre of Marine Sciences
• DeMoS Institute

The funding is awarded through a grant from Open Philanthropy .

This project is an absolutely pioneering approach to a highly complex field, integrating both animal, social, economic and policy perspectives, and the outcomes will impact the way we look into fisheries.