Pre-slaughter management of farmed salmon significantly affects the welfare of millions of fish. Reducing crowding stress, minimising handling, and implementing effective stunning are key welfare priorities.
The last hours of a farmed salmon's life frequently involve the highest welfare burden — crowding into small spaces, exposure to air, mechanical pumping through pipes, and in some systems prolonged consciousness during ineffective stunning. The scale of the problem is vast: hundreds of millions of salmon are slaughtered annually, and each substandard experience represents real suffering. Welfare science has developed effective solutions: minimising pre-slaughter crowding time, avoiding CO2 use, implementing percussive or electrical stunning applied before any further handling, and rapid brain destruction after stunning. Certification schemes and regulatory standards are progressively incorporating these requirements, but implementation speed must accelerate.