Monitoring salmon welfare in commercial net pens requires practical behavioral and physiological indicators. Technology is advancing real-time welfare assessment at commercial scale.
Welfare monitoring in commercial salmon farming is a significant technical challenge given the scale of production systems and the difficulty of observing individual fish in large net pens. Population-level behavioral indicators provide the most practical welfare assessment approach — schooling behavior, feeding response, and surface avoidance are observable at scale using cameras and training observers. AI-based automated behavioral monitoring is advancing rapidly and offers the prospect of continuous welfare assessment without labor-intensive observation. The Salmon Welfare Index represents an important step toward standardized welfare assessment protocols that enable benchmarking between farms and over time. Integrating welfare monitoring with production management systems creates operational feedback loops that make welfare improvement economically incentivized.