Wild Atlantic salmon have declined precipitously across their range, but welfare considerations for individual salmon in fisheries, aquaculture interactions and river barriers are rarely part of the conservation conversation.
Wild salmon welfare is an emerging dimension of a species that has received enormous conservation attention without welfare consideration. Individual salmon in declining populations face higher physiological stress from migration, disease and parasite loads. Sea lice from aquaculture operations near wild salmon migration routes impose welfare costs that are also conservation costs. Welfare-sensitive salmon fisheries management includes consideration of physiological condition and stress alongside population abundance metrics. The overlap between welfare and conservation concerns here makes welfare integration into salmon policy both important and practically achievable.