Channel catfish is the most farmed fish species in the United States, yet welfare standards and research for this industry lag behind salmon and trout aquaculture.
Farmed catfish welfare involves both on-farm and slaughter welfare considerations. Pond-based systems provide more space than intensive tank systems, but large pond sizes create challenges for water quality monitoring and individual animal welfare assessment. Oxygen depletion events in summer can cause mass mortalities with associated suffering. Processing welfare is the most acute concern — catfish are typically killed by ice chilling and bleeding, methods that are not effective at achieving rapid loss of consciousness. Their tolerance for hypoxia means chilling is slow and potentially aversive. Electrical stunning and CO2 stunning adapted for catfish would provide more humane alternatives but are not yet widely adopted in the US industry.