The slaughter of farmed fish without effective stunning causes unnecessary suffering on a massive scale, representing an urgent and underaddressed welfare problem.
Fish slaughtered without effective stunning experience prolonged conscious distress from asphyxiation, ice water chilling, or live processing. The scale of fish welfare impacts is staggering - even if fish experience a fraction of the suffering intensity of mammals, the aggregate welfare cost across tens of billions of individuals is enormous. Research on fish pain and stress confirms behavioral and physiological responses indicating aversive experience during slaughter. Effective stunning methods exist and are commercially viable but adoption remains extremely limited outside a few progressive jurisdictions. The inclusion of fish in welfare frameworks and slaughter regulations represents one of the most impactful policy opportunities in animal welfare.