Wild Pacific salmon undertake one of nature's most extreme journeys to spawn and die. Understanding their welfare during migration informs how human activities affect their final journey.
Wild salmon experience physiological stress and exhaustion during spawning migrations. The combination of extreme physical demands, navigational challenges, and human-created obstacles (dams, warm water, fishing pressure) can cause mortality before spawning completion or reduce reproductive success. While natural death after spawning is ecologically normal, human-induced increases in pre-spawn stress and mortality represent welfare harms that also undermine ecosystem function. Welfare-conscious angling during salmon migration — minimising fight time, keeping fish in water, using barbless hooks — reduces the welfare cost of recreational fishing on these remarkable animals.