Whale sharks, the largest fish on Earth, face welfare challenges from tourism interactions and the very few aquarium settings that house them.
Whale shark welfare in tourism contexts requires strict codes of conduct — limiting swimmer numbers, prohibiting touching, maintaining minimum approach distances, and restricting vessel operations near feeding aggregations. Violations cause measurable disruption to feeding behavior and impose chronic stress costs on individual animals. Aquarium welfare for whale sharks is deeply controversial — tank sizes achievable in even the largest facilities fall far short of the home range of wild individuals. Mortality rates of whale sharks in aquariums suggest that captivity is fundamentally incompatible with their welfare needs. Conservation investment in wild population protection is more defensible than ex-situ display.