Pacific salmon species face welfare challenges throughout their complex lifecycle from warming rivers, dam barriers, sea lice from aquaculture, and depleted spawning habitat.
Wild Pacific salmon experience welfare challenges across every life stage. Juvenile salmon migrating past aquaculture sites encounter sea lice that penetrate their skin. Migrating adults navigating warming rivers experience thermal stress and may die before reaching spawning grounds. Dams block passage entirely or damage fish passing through turbines. Spawning habitat degradation means that adults that do complete migration spawn in degraded gravel with lower egg survival. Each of these welfare harms is addressable through specific interventions: dam removal, riparian restoration, aquaculture siting restrictions, and emission reductions that slow river warming.