Farmed shrimp undergo eyestalk ablation to accelerate reproduction, a painful procedure performed on animals whose sentience is increasingly recognized by science.
Eyestalk ablation in shrimp farming represents a major and often invisible welfare problem. The procedure — performed on billions of individual animals annually — involves direct tissue damage likely to cause pain, based on the behavioral and physiological evidence for crustacean nociception. Because shrimp are small and commercially important, their welfare has received far less attention than vertebrate species. Consumer awareness and certification scheme requirements are beginning to drive industry consideration of alternatives, but progress is slow relative to the scale of the problem.