Farmed prawns and shrimp are among the most consumed aquaculture species globally, with welfare considerations spanning disease management, stocking density, and harvest practices.
Farmed prawn welfare involves a species that straddles the sentience debate — larger than most invertebrates, with behavioral complexity that exceeds many farm insects, yet with a simpler nervous system than fish. The precautionary approach, increasingly adopted by welfare organizations, treats welfare as relevant given credible sentience evidence. Disease management practices present acute welfare concerns: mass mortality events from viral disease involve dying of hundreds of millions of prawns in acute physiological distress. Harvest practices expose prawns to air and handling that cause rapid physiological stress. Stocking density management is the most accessible welfare lever — lower densities reduce disease transmission, aggression, and physical injury simultaneously. The Aquatic Life Institute is developing prawn-specific welfare standards that represent the emerging frontier of crustacean aquaculture welfare.