Every year, billions of fish are caught at sea worldwide and then thrown back overboard.

Omissions

• No source states the number of discarded fish in individual terms directly: FAO reports discards by weight (tonnes), so the 'billions of individual fish' figure is an extrapolation combining FAO discard tonnage with number-based catch estimates.
• The underlying official data are dated: FAO's 9.1 million tonne estimate is based on the 2010-2014 reference period and was published in 2019, more than two years before the 2026 session in which the claim was made.
• The claim is, if anything, an understatement of magnitude: older estimates (Alverson et al., cited by FAO) put global discards at 17.9-39.5 million tonnes per year, and some advocacy estimates put bycatch at up to 40% of global catch.
• The claim is phrased as a lower bound ('billions'), which is satisfied by all credible estimates; the actual number of discarded fish is likely in the tens to hundreds of billions.

Sources

• PrimaryFAO - A third assessment of global marine fisheries discardsFAO's third assessment of global marine fisheries discards (Pérez Roda et al., 2019) is the official update on global discard levels, revising earlier estimates that put annual discards between 17.9 and 39.5 million tons (average 27.0 million) in commercial fisheries.
• PrimaryFAO - Discards and bycatch in the world's marine fisheries (Alverson et al.)The authors estimate that between 17.9 and 39.5 million tons (average 27.0 million) of fish are discarded each year in commercial fisheries.
• AcademicScientific Reports (Nature) - Benchmarking global fisheries discardsAn estimated 9.1 million tonnes are discarded annually (95% uncertainty interval: 7 – 16 Mt) — or 10.8% of the global catch (95% UI: 10-12%), based on FAO's third estimate of global discards in marine fisheries.
• AcademicAnimal Welfare (Cambridge University Press) - Estimating global numbers of fishes caught from the wild annually from 2000 to 2019We estimate that between 1,100 and 2,200 billion (1.1–2.2 × 10^12), or 1.1–2.2 trillion, wild finfishes were caught annually, on average, during 2000–2019.