European and Japanese eels are in severe decline, and eel aquaculture relies entirely on wild-caught juveniles. Welfare and sustainability concerns make eels one of seafood's most problematic choices.
Eel welfare presents both individual animal welfare concerns and population-level sustainability issues that are inseparable. At the individual level, eels appear to have the neurological capacity for pain and distress - their responses to noxious stimuli and stress situations are consistent with sentient experiences. Common slaughter methods including ice slurry immersion cause prolonged pre-death distress. At the population level, the collapse of wild eel populations means that every farmed eel has been removed from populations already at the brink of extinction. The welfare of individual farmed eels and the conservation welfare of wild eel populations are both severely compromised by current eel aquaculture and consumption patterns.