The live reef fish trade supplies luxury restaurants primarily in Asia with fish caught using cyanide and traps, causing severe welfare harms to fish and devastating coral reef ecosystems.
The live reef fish trade causes welfare harms at every stage from capture to consumption. Cyanide exposure is acutely toxic and causes internal organ damage that leads to delayed mortality. Surviving fish are transported in severely overcrowded, low-oxygen conditions across international supply chains lasting days to weeks. Restaurant holding tanks are typically barren, overstocked, and poorly oxygenated. Consumer demand in luxury dining drives this trade, which simultaneously destroys the reef ecosystems these fish depend on. Welfare and conservation interests align closely in calling for elimination of cyanide fishing and tighter regulation of live reef fish transport standards.