Growing evidence that shrimp experience nociception and stress responses is generating calls for welfare consideration in an industry that kills hundreds of billions of animals annually.
Shrimp welfare represents one of the most numerically significant unresolved questions in animal welfare. If shrimp experience negative states during the stress, injury, and death they routinely experience in commercial production, the scale of suffering is staggering. The scientific evidence for shrimp nociception is now substantial enough to warrant precautionary welfare consideration, particularly for practices that clearly cause tissue damage — eyestalk ablation, dry harvest, and ammonia burn from poor water quality. Industry and regulatory reform should not wait for philosophical certainty about shrimp consciousness.