Slaughter practices for farmed tilapia vary widely in humaneness, with live chilling and asphyxiation remaining common despite the availability of more humane alternatives.
Tilapia slaughter welfare is among the least regulated and most welfare-deficient aspects of global tilapia production. The scale of tilapia production, hundreds of billions of fish annually, means that even modest per-fish welfare improvements during slaughter translate to enormous aggregate reductions in suffering. Ice slurry immersion without prior stunning allows tilapia to remain conscious during a prolonged and distressing cold exposure. Effective electrical stunning renders fish insensible within seconds and represents a straightforward welfare improvement that the industry could adopt with relatively modest investment. Consumer and regulatory pressure is needed to drive this transition.