Atlantic cod aquaculture has struggled commercially but continues in Norway and Canada, with welfare challenges from cannibalism, light management, and slaughter protocols.
Farmed cod welfare is shaped by their cannibalistic and territorial nature, which makes density management particularly important. Regular grading causes handling stress but prevents severe injury from cannibalism — a welfare trade-off requiring careful optimization. Light manipulation for production purposes may disrupt natural physiological cycles in welfare-relevant ways that are not yet fully understood. Pre-slaughter electrical stunning is feasible and increasingly adopted in European cod farming operations.