Wild Atlantic and Pacific salmon face devastating population declines from dams, water abstraction, and pollution blocking migration routes. River restoration offers major welfare and conservation benefits.
Wild salmon welfare is primarily a conservation issue — population declines reduce the number of animals living natural lives. Individual welfare concerns include the significant physiological stress of migration, which is normal but becomes welfare-compromising when combined with poor water quality, elevated temperatures from climate change, and exhaustion from multiple failed migration attempts at barriers. Salmon that cannot pass dams are observed repeatedly attempting to leap barriers, a frustrating and energy-depleting experience. Warm river temperatures — increasingly common with climate change — reduce dissolved oxygen and increase disease susceptibility, causing significant suffering in spawning migrations. Dam removal, one of the most effective conservation interventions, also directly benefits individual salmon welfare by removing migration obstacles.