Shrimp aquaculture involves welfare practices including eyestalk ablation to induce spawning, which evidence suggests causes significant pain, and the welfare of billions of intensively farmed shrimp warrants urgent attention.
Shrimp welfare represents one of the most numerically significant animal welfare issues in the world given the enormous numbers farmed. Eyestalk ablation without anaesthesia causes acute pain responses in a species with documented nociception. The practice is routine and considered standard industry practice, yet evidence increasingly supports the conclusion that it causes unnecessary suffering avoidable through alternative reproductive management. High-density farming causes disease stress and mass mortalities. Slaughter methods for shrimp are unstandardised and often cause prolonged suffering. The Shrimp Welfare Project is pioneering work with producers to implement welfare improvements at scale.