Tropical shrimp production dominates global aquaculture by value, with billions of animals reared under conditions that increasingly require welfare consideration.
Female shrimp subjected to eyestalk ablation to stimulate egg production experience acute pain from the procedure and lose the hormonal regulation associated with the removed gland. The precautionary principle applied to shrimp nociception suggests this widely practiced procedure causes significant suffering across millions of broodstock animals annually. Whitespot disease outbreaks cause rapid mortality affecting millions of shrimp in affected ponds simultaneously. High stocking densities increase aggression and competition for food in a species that shows dominance behaviour at close quarters.