Disease is the most devastating welfare event in shrimp farming, causing mass mortality in conditions that likely involve significant suffering — prevention is the most welfare-positive strategy.
Shrimp disease welfare is complicated by the scale of impact and the uncertainty about shrimp subjective experience. If shrimp experience something like pain during EMS-induced hepatopancreatic necrosis, the welfare cost of major disease outbreaks is staggering. Prevention-focused management — biosecurity, SPF broodstock, probiotic support, and environmental stress minimisation that predisposes to disease — is the highest-impact welfare intervention available. Disease outbreaks that cause mass mortality represent the most significant welfare events in aquaculture and warrant treatment as serious welfare incidents.