Shrimp are among the most numerically significant farmed animals, yet slaughter methods remain largely unstudied for humaneness. Growing evidence of crustacean sentience makes this an urgent welfare frontier.
The welfare of farmed shrimp sits at the edge of scientific and ethical consensus. Evidence for pain experience in decapod crustaceans has grown substantially — they show protective behaviors after injury, have nociceptors, and modify their behavior in response to noxious stimuli. Chilling on ice, the dominant slaughter method, may not render shrimp insensible before death. Live boiling is almost certainly aversive to conscious animals. Given the billions of shrimp slaughtered annually, even modest improvements to slaughter methods could represent an enormous reduction in suffering. Electrical stunning adapted from crustacean applications offers a scalable, commercially viable alternative that deserves rapid industry uptake.