Wild Pacific salmon face multiple threats that combine to reduce populations and welfare of individual fish.
Wild Pacific salmon welfare encompasses both individual fish experience during their challenging anadromous life cycle and the broader ecosystem health that sustains viable populations. Individual fish navigating past dams, through warming rivers, competing with hatchery fish, and encountering sea lice near aquaculture sites experience cumulative physiological stress across their migration. Dam removal represents one of the most welfare-positive interventions available, restoring access to cool, clean spawning habitat that reduces thermal stress and improves survival. The conservation of wild salmon populations ensures that millions of individual fish continue to complete their remarkable life cycles.