European and Japanese eels are both critically endangered and commercially significant, creating welfare and conservation tensions in eel farming.
Farmed eel welfare sits at an uncomfortable intersection of serious conservation concern and continued high demand. Wild glass eel capture for seeding farms is both a welfare event — juvenile eels experience significant stress during capture and transport — and a direct conservation harm by removing juveniles from already-depleted wild populations. The welfare of eels in farming systems is poorly characterized by research and poorly regulated by standards. Both welfare and conservation interests point toward the same conclusion: eel farming must transition to closed-cycle systems that do not depend on wild capture, and consumer pressure and regulatory requirements should drive that transition.