Shrimp aquaculture suffers devastating disease outbreaks that kill billions of animals and drive intensive antibiotic use. Better biosecurity, genetics, and management can prevent disease while reducing potential suffering.
Shrimp disease outbreaks represent welfare events of enormous scale: billions of animals dying from viral or bacterial infections in conditions of crowding and immune stress. The precautionary application of welfare considerations to shrimp — given genuine scientific uncertainty about their sentience — suggests that disease prevention is a welfare priority even before the question of pain capacity is resolved. The shift toward disease-resistant genetics, biosecurity, probiotics, and water quality management simultaneously improves welfare outcomes, reduces antibiotic use, and improves farm economics. The widespread prophylactic antibiotic use that characterizes poorly managed shrimp aquaculture is both a welfare concern and a public health problem, as it contributes to the global spread of antimicrobial resistance.