The period immediately before slaughter is among the most stressful in farmed salmon production. Reducing crowding, handling, and waiting time before death significantly improves salmon welfare.
Pre-slaughter welfare in salmon farming represents one of the highest-impact welfare improvement opportunities in aquaculture. The harvest process involves multiple sequential stressors: crowding during net reduction, transfer by pump or crowd, holding in confinement, fasting, and transport to processing facilities. Each step causes measurable physiological stress and potential injury from crowding and mechanical handling. The stress response cascades through cortisol elevation affecting immune function, muscle metabolism, and subjective experience. Welfare-improving practices at harvest include slower net reduction to allow gradual crowding, minimizing pump transfer distance and speed, reducing fasting duration to the minimum required for gut clearance, and ensuring the interval between confinement and death is as short as possible. At slaughter itself, percussive stunning that instantly destroys brain function is the welfare gold standard, followed by immediate exsanguination. Consumer and regulatory pressure from key export markets is accelerating adoption of best practice.