Wild Atlantic salmon face multiple welfare threats from habitat degradation, farmed salmon disease spillover and climate change. Understanding these threats enables effective conservation and welfare advocacy.
Wild salmon welfare encompasses both conservation and individual animal considerations. Salmon experiencing thermal stress in warming rivers show physiological responses consistent with significant welfare harm. Fish passage structures that require salmon to make repeated exhausting attempts to pass barriers cause acute welfare harm and reproductive failure. Catch and release fishing, while preferable to killing, causes measurable cortisol elevation, scale loss and physical injury, particularly in warm water conditions. Sea lice from farms settling on wild smolts cause tissue damage equivalent to farming-induced infestations. The welfare and conservation cases for salmon are aligned: healthy rivers, reduced farm disease spillover, restored riparian habitat and effective fish passage serve both individual fish welfare and population recovery.