Most farmed fish are killed without prior stunning, meaning they may experience prolonged consciousness during slaughter, representing one of the largest preventable welfare failures in food production.
Farmed fish slaughter represents perhaps the largest numerical welfare gap in food production. The same welfare concern that led to mandatory stunning for land animals — preventing conscious suffering during killing — applies to fish, yet is addressed in only a small fraction of aquaculture operations globally. The scale is almost incomprehensible: hundreds of billions of individual fish potentially experiencing distress during slaughter each year. Technically viable stunning methods exist, adoption is growing in progressive markets, and consumer and regulatory pressure represents the primary lever for accelerating this transition.