Atlantic cod aquaculture faces significant welfare challenges including aggressive behavior, parasite susceptibility, and skeletal deformities, limiting its commercial viability and welfare standards.
Cod aquaculture presents a set of welfare challenges that contributed to the commercial failures of the first major wave of cod farming in the 2000s. High rates of cannibalism, skeletal deformities from suboptimal nutrition and genetics, and disease susceptibility created both welfare problems and economic losses. The industry is now investing in improved broodstock genetics, optimized nutrition, and management systems that reduce aggression through improved environmental design. From a welfare standpoint, cod farming will only be ethically viable if it can demonstrate control over the aggressive behavior, reduce deformity rates to near zero, and implement effective pre-slaughter stunning. Current welfare research is providing the foundation for these improvements.