The period immediately before and during slaughter is among the most welfare-significant in salmon aquaculture, and evidence-based stunning methods dramatically reduce suffering.
Salmon slaughter welfare has undergone significant evidence-based reform over the past two decades, driven by growing recognition of fish pain capacity and research demonstrating the suffering caused by traditional methods. Live chilling, once nearly universal, is increasingly replaced by percussive or electrical stunning that produces rapid unconsciousness before the killing process. The welfare gains from this transition are substantial: a salmon killed by percussive stunning after minimal crowding time experiences a fraction of the suffering of one crowded for hours before being placed alive into ice slurry. The science is settled that better methods exist and are commercially viable — the remaining challenge is ensuring these methods are adopted and correctly applied across all producing regions.