The welfare of farmed salmon at slaughter is largely overlooked in comparison to terrestrial farm animal slaughter, but involves billions of fish experiencing poorly controlled killing methods annually.
Farmed salmon harvest welfare receives a fraction of the attention given to terrestrial farm animal slaughter despite involving comparable numbers of sentient animals. Traditional live-chilling — placing live fish in ice water — is widely considered inadequate stunning that extends the period of conscious distress. CO2 stunning causes aversive responses. Percussive and electrical stunning methods produce rapid insensibility and are technically feasible at commercial scale. The welfare gap between current practice and achievable best practice is large, the technology to close it exists, and the primary barriers are cost, regulatory enforcement, and the limited welfare attention paid to fish in food systems.