Wild Pacific and Atlantic salmon face dramatic population declines from dam construction, habitat degradation, and climate change, with welfare implications across millions of individual fish struggling to complete their lifecycle migrations.
Wild salmon welfare spans the full migration lifecycle. Juvenile salmon face mortality from predation, water temperature extremes, and sea lice. Migrating adults face fisheries capture, bear predation, dam barriers, and thermal stress as they ascend rivers. The spawning migration itself is physiologically extreme — salmon stop eating entirely and convert body mass to reproductive energy. The welfare significance of blocking salmon migration with dams goes beyond individual fish harm: it prevents the completion of a lifecycle that is the biological purpose of the organism. Dam removal programs have produced the most dramatic salmon welfare and population recovery outcomes of any conservation intervention, restoring natural migration to hundreds of kilometers of habitat within years.