Eels are farmed primarily in Asia and Europe, but their complex biology including catadromous migration and dependence on wild-caught juveniles creates significant welfare and sustainability challenges.
Eel welfare encompasses both farmed welfare and the sustainability of wild populations. As the farming industry depends on wild-caught juveniles, every farmed eel represents a drain on critically endangered wild populations — a welfare-and-conservation issue that cannot be separated. In farming systems, eels are long-lived, behaviorally complex fish that endure years of intensive confinement. Slaughter methods vary widely in humaneness. Consumer demand for farmed eel products thus implicates wild population welfare through capture and survival during transport, farmed individual welfare during production, and long-term species welfare through population collapse risk. Reducing eel consumption is one of the most direct welfare and conservation actions available.