Carp are the most widely farmed fish globally, primarily in Asia. Understanding welfare challenges in carp aquaculture helps inform better standards for this dominant sector.
Carp welfare in aquaculture is largely unaddressed despite the enormous scale of production. The common practice of live transport and live market sales means carp experience crowded, hypoxic conditions during extended transport and then live holding in market tanks - a prolonged pre-death welfare challenge. Slaughter methods for carp are typically unstunned - fish are killed by asphyxia or by blunt trauma without reliable stunning. The scale of carp production means that welfare improvements, even modest ones, would affect enormous numbers of individual fish. The absence of welfare considerations from even major aquaculture certification programs covering carp reflects how early-stage the conversation is for this dominant species.