Pacific and Atlantic salmon face welfare challenges during their spawning migrations from oceanic feeding grounds to natal rivers, with environmental degradation compounding natural physiological challenges.
Wild salmon welfare during spawning migration is a multi-factor welfare challenge: physiological depletion, thermal stress from warming rivers, lice burdens from fish farms, physical barriers from dams, and predation pressure all converge during the critical migration period. Conservation efforts including dam removal, river restoration, and sea lice management around migration corridors address multiple welfare factors simultaneously. Helping salmon reach their spawning grounds in better condition is both a welfare and conservation goal.