Atlantic wild salmon face multiple welfare threats including river barriers, sea lice from fish farms, sport fishing, and climate-driven habitat change. Their welfare intersects with conservation crisis.
Wild salmon returning to freshwater to spawn face a physiologically extreme journey — they stop eating, metabolise their own muscle, and fight upstream through barriers, fast-flowing water, and gauntlets of predators. Sea lice infestation acquired near fish farms causes skin damage, secondary infections, and osmotic stress that can kill fish before they complete migration. Fish that are angled, fought to exhaustion, and released may have significantly reduced spawning success. Salmon that reach spawning grounds spawn and die — a natural welfare event, but one whose welfare significance increases as populations collapse and individual journeys become rarer. River restoration dramatically improves the welfare of salmon undertaking this extraordinary journey.