Shrimp are among the most commercially important aquatic animals, yet their capacity for pain and suffering has only recently attracted serious scientific attention.
The question of shrimp sentience is no longer purely speculative. Behavioural and neurobiological evidence increasingly supports the view that decapod crustaceans experience something akin to pain and distress. At the scale of shrimp production, even marginal improvements in slaughter methods or stocking density could have enormous aggregate impact. The Shrimp Welfare Project is actively developing and testing higher-welfare stunning protocols for industry adoption.