Scientific consensus increasingly supports that fish experience pain, with significant implications for fisheries, aquaculture, and recreational angling.
Fish welfare has historically been neglected due to assumptions about limited fish cognition and sentience. The emerging scientific consensus on fish nociception and stress responses has profound implications for all industries that involve fish. Commercial fisheries, aquaculture, recreational angling, the pet trade, and research all subject fish to potentially painful procedures and conditions at scales dwarfing all other vertebrate animal use combined. Developing and implementing welfare standards for fish represents one of the largest opportunities to reduce animal suffering globally.