Carp are the most widely farmed fish globally, primarily in China and South and Southeast Asia, but welfare considerations for these species receive almost no attention in production systems.
Carp farming produces more individual animals under welfare-ignored conditions than any other aquaculture sector. The sheer scale — tens of billions of individual fish annually — makes carp welfare one of the largest unaddressed animal welfare concerns globally. Hypoxia events cause acute suffocation distress. Harvesting through seining and crowding creates extreme density stress. No meaningful welfare standards apply in the primary producing countries. The evidence that fish experience pain and stress is sufficient to create a precautionary welfare obligation even before the science is fully settled. The combination of scale and neglect makes carp welfare an underappreciated welfare priority.