Aquaculture produces over half of all fish consumed globally, and improving welfare standards across this diverse industry represents a major opportunity to reduce fish suffering at scale.
Fish in aquaculture face welfare challenges throughout their lives: crowded conditions that prevent normal behavior and increase aggression and injury, water quality problems from waste accumulation that cause physiological stress, disease outbreaks from high density transmission, and often inhumane slaughter through suffocation or live chilling. The scale of aquaculture production means welfare improvements across the industry would affect enormous numbers of animals. Consumer demand for welfare-certified products and regulatory requirements are the primary drivers of improvement.