Improving aquatic animal welfare
How can we most improve the wellbeing of farmed and wild caught aquatic animals?
This profile is tailored towards students studying biological sciences, computer science, economics, engineering, law, media and communications, and psychology and cognitive science, however we expect there to be valuable open research questions that could be pursued by students in other disciplines.
Why is this a pressing problem?
Over 100 billion fish are farmed globally each year, and possibly several times as many wild fish are killed, as well as billions of other aquatic animals such as crustaceans. The Sentience Institute estimates that in 2019, virtually all fish raised for human use in the US were raised on factory farms, spending their lives in stressful and unhealthy conditions. These fish experience a range of welfare problems, such as infectious diseases and parasites, stress from handling and crowding, painful procedures and starvation.
The welfare of animals like crabs, lobsters and shrimp is also a serious issue. Crustaceans display physiological and behavioural characteristics that have been proposed as evidence of the experience of pain, but as well as enduring poor conditions on farms, these animals are often killed in very inhumane ways – such as being boiled while conscious.
While wild fish experience less human-caused suffering during their lives, methods of capture and slaughter often seem extremely inhumane and may leave fish injured or suffocating for hours or even days.
The scale of aquatic animal suffering caused by humans seems to be huge, and has been relatively neglected by animal advocates. Further research is needed on how to improve these animals’ welfare as effectively as possible. See the talk below for an introduction to the importance of this area.
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Contributors: This profile was last updated 27/05/23. Thanks to Jennifer-Justine Kirsch, Yip Fai Tse and Ren Springlea for helpful feedback. All mistakes remain our own. Learn more about how we create our profiles.
