Shrimp farming involves billions of animals in conditions that cause poorly understood but likely significant welfare impacts at enormous scale.
Shrimp welfare represents one of the most significant and least addressed frontiers in farmed animal welfare. The scale is staggering - more shrimp are farmed than any other aquaculture species by individual count. While the scientific evidence for shrimp sentience is less developed than for vertebrates, evidence of nociception and stress responses is sufficient to warrant serious welfare concern. Eyestalk ablation - removing the eyestalks of broodstock females without anaesthesia to induce reproduction - is a routine practice that would not be accepted in vertebrate aquaculture without substantial ethical justification and mitigation.