Anaesthesia is increasingly used in fish husbandry and research to reduce stress and pain during handling procedures. Understanding appropriate agents and techniques is important for fish welfare.
Fish anaesthesia represents a significant advance in aquatic animal welfare, acknowledging that handling procedures without pain management cause suffering in sentient animals. The evidence that fish experience pain makes the use of anaesthesia for invasive procedures an ethical obligation rather than merely a best practice. In aquaculture, anaesthesia during spawning, vaccination, tagging, and transport reduces stress responses that impair immune function and increase disease susceptibility. In research, anaesthesia is required for procedures that would be considered painful in mammals, reflecting the growing regulatory recognition of fish sentience. Species-specific dosing information and competent handling are essential for effective, welfare-positive anaesthetic use.