Billions of farmed shrimp are slaughtered annually, typically without prior stunning. Emerging evidence of crustacean sentience makes slaughter welfare an increasingly urgent issue.
The welfare dimension of shrimp slaughter is contested but increasingly credible — evidence of nociception and pain-like states in decapods supports application of the precautionary principle to slaughter practices. Live boiling without prior stunning causes a prolonged loss of consciousness during which noxious stimuli continue to be processed. Electrical stunning systems that rapidly render crustaceans insensible before death are available, scalable, and beginning to be adopted in some high-welfare operations. The scale of shrimp slaughter means even incremental welfare improvements affect billions of animals.