Humane slaughter methods for farmed fish are advancing rapidly, offering welfare improvements for billions of fish annually.
Fish slaughter welfare represents one of the most tractable improvements available for aquaculture welfare in the near term. The technical solutions exist — percussive stunning, electrical stunning, and anesthetic immersion — and the challenge is scaling adoption across the diversity of farmed species and production contexts. Regulatory requirements for pre-slaughter stunning in salmon, now in place in several countries, have been implemented without major production disruption, providing a model for extension to other species. The welfare case is clear: fish that experience effective stunning before killing do not experience the stress and pain of consciousness during slaughter.