The use of anesthesia for fish during veterinary procedures, handling, transport, and research is an important but often overlooked welfare consideration in fish management.
Fish anesthesia represents a welfare improvement over handling fish without pain management during procedures, but its use remains inconsistent in both aquaculture and research contexts. The central welfare argument is that fish are now recognized as sentient beings capable of experiencing pain and stress; performing invasive procedures without anesthesia is unjustifiable from a welfare standpoint. In practice, anesthesia use is more common in research than in commercial aquaculture, where cost and practicality create barriers. The welfare cost of repeated handling, crowding, and out-of-water exposure during routine husbandry is reduced when procedures are combined and anesthesia is used. Increased recognition of fish sentience in policy frameworks is driving better anesthesia standards globally, though enforcement remains challenging.