How pre-slaughter handling affects salmon welfare and what best practice looks like.
The final hours of a farmed salmon's life encompass some of the highest-intensity welfare events in aquaculture. The sequence of fasting, crowding, pumping, transport, and slaughter creates a cascade of stressors that research shows cause significant physiological and behavioral distress. Welfare-conscious harvest protocols minimize crowding duration, maintain dissolved oxygen through supplementation, use gentle pumping systems that reduce physical injury, and apply effective stunning immediately before slaughter. The gap between best-practice farms and standard operations in pre-slaughter welfare is large. Consumer demand for welfare-certified products creates market incentives for adopting the better protocols that exist but are not yet standard.