Wild salmon endure extraordinary physical stress during spawning migrations and face additional harms from fishing and dams.
Salmon face multiple welfare harms during their lifecycles. Commercial fishing causes barotrauma from rapid pressure changes, suffocation, crushing in nets, and prolonged dying on boats. Dam fish ladders exhaust fish that are already physiologically depleted. Bycatch results in massive numbers of non-target fish dying in nets. Warming oceans cause nutritional stress and early death.