The slaughter of farmed fish is an often-overlooked welfare issue affecting billions of animals. Evidence-based stunning methods can prevent suffering at the end of farmed fish lives.
Fish slaughter welfare is perhaps the most neglected aspect of aquaculture welfare given the extraordinary numbers involved and the lack of regulatory requirements in most producing countries. Fish are sentient animals capable of pain, and the evidence from neurobiological research and behavioural studies strongly supports that they can experience the distress of inadequate slaughter methods. CO2 narcosis causes distress before insensibility in many species including salmon, and simple chilling on ice leaves fish conscious and dying slowly. Percussive and electrical stunning methods that provide rapid, effective insensibility are available and increasingly cost-effective at commercial scale. Norway's regulatory requirement for stunning before slaughter provides an important model for other major producing countries to follow.