Wild Atlantic salmon face a welfare crisis across their range, with populations in severe decline due to threats at sea, in rivers, and from farmed salmon interactions.
Wild Atlantic salmon welfare is threatened by a convergence of pressures that individually would be manageable but together are driving population collapse. Temperature stress in warming rivers, barriers preventing migration, sea lice burdens from passing near fish farms, and dramatically reduced sea survival all reduce individual welfare and reproductive success. The collapse of wild salmon populations represents millions of individual welfare events across the lifecycle - from smolts killed by sea lice to adults unable to return to spawning rivers due to temperature. Restoration requires action at multiple scales: river habitat, farmed salmon management, and ocean conservation all matter.