Slaughter welfare for farmed Atlantic salmon is a significant and improving area of aquaculture welfare science. The methods used in the final minutes of a salmon's life matter enormously.
Slaughter welfare for farmed salmon has undergone substantial improvement driven by welfare science and regulatory pressure. The transition from live chilling — where fish could remain conscious and distressed for 15 minutes or more in ice slurry — to electrical or percussive stunning represents a genuine reduction in the suffering experienced in the final moments of hundreds of millions of lives each year. However, the welfare improvements are uneven across the industry: smaller facilities and some international producers lag behind the best practice established in Norwegian and Scottish sectors. Pre-slaughter crowding remains a welfare challenge, as concentrating fish for pump transfer to slaughter causes acute hypoxia, skin damage, and acute stress. Welfare monitoring at slaughter — verifying that fish are unconscious before gill cutting and bleed-out — requires trained staff and standardised assessment protocols. Continuous improvement in slaughter method quality, combined with reduced crowding time and stress minimisation during transfer, can further reduce the welfare cost of the final stage of salmon production.