Catfish are widely farmed across Asia, Africa, and the Americas, and welfare concerns include pain sensitivity, handling stress, and slaughter practices in largely unregulated production systems.
Catfish welfare deserves serious attention given evidence of their sentience and capacity to suffer. In intensive pond systems, oxygen depletion events can cause mass mortality and acute suffering. Handling practices during harvesting often involve rough treatment and crowding. Slaughter without effective stunning is commonplace in many catfish producing countries. Regulatory frameworks for catfish welfare are largely absent outside North America and Europe, meaning welfare outcomes depend heavily on individual producer practices.