Farmed prawns are one of the most globally traded seafood commodities, with welfare conditions in intensive production systems raising significant concerns for millions of animals.
Farmed prawn welfare sits at the frontier of aquatic invertebrate welfare ethics. Prawns show nociceptive responses, avoidance learning, and physiological stress indicators that suggest capacity for suffering. Intensive farming conditions — high density, poor water quality, disease pressure — cause measurable physiological stress that likely reduces welfare. Eyestalk ablation, performed to stimulate reproduction in broodstock females, is an acute painful procedure with no anaesthetic equivalent used at commercial scale. The welfare science is still developing, but the precautionary principle supports treating prawns as animals deserving welfare consideration and advocating for farming standards that reduce unnecessary stress and avoid painful procedures.