Pacific salmon populations across the US and Canada are experiencing severe declines driven by multiple stressors that cause suffering at population scale.
The welfare dimension of Pacific salmon population collapse is visible in the suffering of individual fish attempting futile migration runs. Salmon blocked below impassable dams may spend weeks circling below the dam structure, undergoing the physiological changes of spawning while unable to complete migration. This represents prolonged, species-specific suffering at a scale of millions of fish per year across affected river systems. Dam removal — demonstrated to rapidly restore salmon runs — is simultaneously the conservation and welfare intervention most needed.