Research into welfare in aquatic invertebrates including starfish, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers is at an early but rapidly developing stage.
The welfare status of aquatic invertebrates is genuinely uncertain in ways that challenge welfare advocacy and policy. Animals with distributed nervous systems that lack the centralized processing associated with vertebrate pain may nonetheless have something that functions as a pain-like experience. The precautionary principle, combined with the enormous scale of harvesting these animals globally, suggests investing in research that could resolve the uncertainty and inform proportionate welfare responses.