Live shrimp transport is common in aquaculture supply chains and causes significant welfare harms through crowding, oxygen depletion, and handling stress. Better practices can reduce this suffering substantially.
Shrimp transport represents a concentrated point of welfare harm in the supply chain. Dense crowding causes mechanical injury, oxygen competition, and ammonia buildup from waste. Shrimp in these conditions show behavioral signs of distress including increased activity followed by torpor. Cold stunning, while reducing metabolic demand, may not eliminate pain perception. The duration of transport stress — often 24-48 hours from harvest to consumer — means substantial cumulative suffering. Given the enormous numbers of shrimp transported globally, improvements in transport conditions would benefit billions of individual animals.