The shrimp industry produces over 5 million tonnes annually involving billions of individual animals whose welfare is almost entirely unaddressed. This represents a major frontier.
Shrimp represent perhaps the largest scale of potentially sentient animal use with the least welfare consideration. The sheer numbers involved — hundreds of billions farmed annually — means that even small per-individual welfare improvements could reduce suffering for more animals than all other welfare interventions combined. Yet shrimp welfare receives minimal regulatory attention and is largely absent from aquaculture welfare schemes. Priority interventions include eliminating eyestalk ablation through development of alternative maturation methods, improving water quality standards that reduce disease and stress, and developing humane slaughter methods. The Shrimp Welfare Project identifies and implements cost-effective welfare improvements at industry scale, representing one of the highest-impact animal welfare interventions available.