The environmental impacts of aquaculture including pollution, habitat modification, and escaped species affect wild animal welfare as well as the welfare of farmed animals.
Aquaculture environmental welfare extends beyond the farmed animals themselves to the wild animals affected by aquaculture operations. Benthic communities smothered by farm waste face habitat disruption that affects the welfare of invertebrates living there. Sea lice treatments toxic to crustaceans harm wild lobsters, crabs, and other non-target species in treatment areas. Escaped farmed salmon hybridise with wild fish, reducing offspring fitness and population viability. These environmental welfare costs occur alongside the direct welfare challenges of farmed animals themselves, creating a wider welfare impact that site selection, waste management, and chemical use standards can address.