Ecuador and Peru are major global producers of white-leg shrimp with welfare challenges around pond density, disease management, and harvesting practices.
South American white-leg shrimp production, while often at lower densities than Asian intensive systems, still involves welfare challenges at harvest when shrimp are concentrated in shrinking pond volumes. Disease outbreaks causing mass mortality events represent welfare incidents affecting thousands to millions of individuals simultaneously. The sentience question for shrimp remains debated but the precautionary scale of production means welfare improvements would have enormous aggregate impact.