Aquaculture now produces more seafood than wild catch globally. As the sector grows rapidly, establishing welfare standards for farmed fish before practices become entrenched is an urgent priority.
The rapid growth of global aquaculture creates both a welfare crisis and an opportunity. If welfare standards are not established now, the industry will entrench practices that may be difficult to reform later — this is the lesson of terrestrial animal agriculture, where practices established before welfare consideration became standard are now deeply embedded and costly to change. The welfare significance of aquaculture is enormous given the numbers involved: fish farming may involve more individual animals than all terrestrial livestock farming combined. Establishing welfare standards, breeding programs that consider health traits, humane slaughter requirements, and enrichment norms for new aquaculture species before the industry fully scales is an urgent priority for animal welfare advocates and regulators.