Shrimp are the world's most traded seafood by value, farmed in enormous numbers under intensive conditions with almost no regulatory welfare protection despite growing evidence of sentience.
The scale of shrimp farming welfare concerns is staggering - hundreds of billions of animals per year in conditions that systematically compromise their welfare. The Shrimp Welfare Project has identified shrimp as one of the highest-priority welfare causes given the combination of scale, severity, and neglect. Evidence for shrimp sentience is substantial - they show avoidance learning, stress responses, and nociception. The absence of any regulatory framework for shrimp welfare leaves an enormous gap between what is known and what is done.