Sea cucumbers are harvested in enormous quantities for the luxury food market, yet their capacity for suffering and the welfare implications of fishing methods are rarely considered.
Sea cucumber welfare sits at the frontier of animal welfare science: we lack clear evidence of sentience but also lack evidence of its absence in these evolutionarily distant animals. The precautionary principle suggests treating potential suffering as welfare-relevant when the stakes are high enough. Sea cucumber fishing has collapsed populations across the Indo-Pacific, creating conservation harms alongside potential welfare ones. Conservation-focused harvest management at minimum reduces these harms even where welfare significance remains uncertain.