Fish welfare research is advancing rapidly, overturning long-held assumptions about whether fish feel pain and how their experiences should be considered in policy and practice.
Fish welfare science has undergone a revolution in the past two decades. Early dismissal of fish pain as a reflex rather than a conscious experience has been replaced by recognition that fish have the neural architecture for nociception and show behavioural and physiological indicators consistent with pain. This has profound implications: fish are farmed in numbers that dwarf all other farmed vertebrates combined, yet welfare standards for fish lag far behind those for mammals and birds. Research frontiers include developing reliable welfare indicators for commercial species, understanding the welfare implications of aquaculture husbandry practices, and creating non-invasive monitoring tools.