Fish are far more cognitively sophisticated than once assumed. Research into fish learning, memory, social behaviour, and pain responses has profound implications for how they should be treated.
The cumulative evidence from fish cognition research shows animals capable of learning, social complexity, and memory far beyond the reflex-driven automata they were once assumed to be. Combined with pain evidence, this supports a precautionary approach to fish welfare that treats them as sentient animals deserving protection. The welfare implications are enormous given the scale of fish use: aquaculture, wild capture, recreational fishing, and laboratory research collectively affect trillions of fish annually.