The slaughter of farmed fish involves hundreds of billions of individuals annually, with significant welfare variation between methods and growing regulatory attention.
The slaughter of hundreds of billions of farmed fish annually without welfare consideration represents one of the largest unaddressed welfare failures in global food systems. Methods currently used in much of the industry - CO2 stunning and live chilling - cause prolonged distress before death. Percussive stunning, where properly applied, causes near-instant unconsciousness. The welfare gap between best and worst practice is enormous, and regulatory requirements in most countries are either absent or inadequately enforced.