Shrimp are farmed in enormous quantities with minimal welfare consideration. Growing evidence of crustacean sentience and the scale of shrimp production make this an important emerging animal welfare issue.
The welfare of farmed shrimp represents a frontier in animal welfare science and policy. The scale is enormous — billions of individual animals — and current practices include high-density crowding, eyestalk ablation in broodstock females to induce spawning, and ice slurry killing that may cause prolonged suffering. The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness and subsequent research increasingly supports the view that decapod crustaceans have the neurological basis for pain experience. Welfare-conscious shrimp production is emerging, including improved stunning methods and lower stocking densities, but remains a small fraction of the industry.