Fish are the most numerous farmed vertebrates, yet slaughter methods for fish remain largely unregulated and often cause prolonged suffering compared to mammal and poultry standards.
Fish slaughter welfare represents one of the largest scale welfare issues in food production. Asphyxiation in air or on ice causes prolonged conscious suffering as fish desperately seek oxygen. Live bleeding without prior stunning causes acute pain. The scale is staggering - more fish are farmed than all other vertebrates combined. Electrical and percussive stunning systems are effective and increasingly available, but adoption remains patchy and unregulated for most species globally.