Escaped farmed salmon interact with wild populations through competition, hybridization, and disease transmission, creating ecological welfare impacts beyond the farm boundary.
The welfare impacts of farmed-wild salmon interactions extend beyond individual farmed fish to affect wild salmon populations whose welfare is compromised by increased parasite burden, competition, and genetic dilution. Wild salmon weakened by farm-origin sea lice suffer reduced survival and reproduction affecting population viability over generations. The welfare response requires systemic solutions including sea lice treatment protocols that reduce wild fish exposure, net pen management to minimize escape risk, and long-term transition toward closed-containment systems that eliminate the farm-to-wild welfare pathway.