Rainbow trout aquaculture raises significant welfare concerns around crowding, water quality, handling, and slaughter that require industry-wide reform.
Trout raised in intensive aquaculture experience a range of welfare challenges throughout their lives - from crowding and competition for feed to disease treatments and stressful harvesting. Evidence indicates they experience pain and stress similar to terrestrial vertebrates. Improvements in stocking density, water quality management, enrichment, and humane slaughter methods are achievable and increasingly industry-accepted.