Prawn farming is one of the world's most economically significant aquaculture sectors, involving trillions of individual animals annually. Emerging sentience evidence is reshaping the welfare conversation.
Farmed prawn welfare parallels farmed shrimp welfare — the same species group, similar production systems, and the same emerging sentience evidence. Eyestalk ablation, the most acute welfare concern in broodstock management, causes direct physical damage and pain; alternatives using environmental manipulation to stimulate spawning are being developed but not yet widely adopted. Slaughter without pre-stunning is universal. High disease burden causes mass mortality events that involve large-scale suffering if prawns are sentient. The Shrimp Welfare Project has identified Pacific whiteleg shrimp farming as a primary target precisely because of its enormous scale — improving welfare in this one species would benefit more individuals than almost any other intervention in animal agriculture. Consumer awareness and regulatory engagement are the key leverage points.