Salmon slaughter methods vary dramatically in their welfare impact, from prolonged suffering through live chilling to rapid insensibility through electrical or percussive stunning.
Salmon slaughter welfare represents the most impactful single intervention point in the welfare of farmed fish. The number of salmon slaughtered annually is enormous, and the difference between rapid effective stunning and prolonged conscious dying through ice chilling or CO2 immersion involves hundreds of millions of individual fish experiences per year. Norway has demonstrated through its regulatory requirements that pre-slaughter stunning is commercially feasible at scale — Norwegian farmed salmon is both the highest-volume producer and operates under the most stringent slaughter welfare requirements. The welfare science unambiguously supports electrical or percussive stunning as dramatically superior to alternatives. The policy barrier to global adoption is not technical feasibility but regulatory will and consumer demand for welfare-certified salmon.