Atlantic cod farming has expanded as wild stocks have collapsed. Ensuring good welfare in farmed cod requires attention to their specific behavioral needs, disease management, and humane slaughter.
Farmed cod welfare presents specific challenges arising from their ecological character as active, wide-ranging predators. In intensive cage systems, the restricted space and high densities create conditions for chronic stress, disease susceptibility, and expression of aggressive dominance behavior that causes injury to subordinate fish. Disease management is a significant welfare concern: parasitic gill amoeba causes severe respiratory distress; sea lice cause skin damage and osmoregulatory disruption; bacterial infections spread rapidly through crowded populations. Treatment options for farmed cod are more limited than for salmon, making prevention through good husbandry critical. Temperature excursions outside the optimal range cause acute welfare deterioration. At slaughter, most farmed cod are killed without prior stunning — an area where welfare improvements are technically feasible and increasingly demanded by welfare-conscious buyers.