Developing welfare standards for Atlantic cod farming, an emerging aquaculture sector.
Farmed cod welfare development benefits from the more advanced welfare science developed for Atlantic salmon, allowing standards to be developed with reference to a closely related species in the same production context. However, cod's different behavioral ecology and disease profile requires species-specific welfare research rather than direct salmon standard adoption. The development of the Norwegian cod farming industry under strict animal welfare regulations provides a model for welfare-integrated development that other producing countries could follow. The welfare significance of establishing good standards early, before commercial scale creates path dependency around poor practices, makes investment in cod welfare science particularly timely.