Billions of farmed fish are slaughtered annually using methods that often fail to ensure unconsciousness before death, representing one of the largest unaddressed animal welfare issues in food production.
Fish slaughtered by live chilling in ice slurry remain conscious and capable of experiencing pain for minutes. Asphyxiation in air causes prolonged conscious dying as fish struggle to obtain oxygen. These methods are used because they are convenient and inexpensive rather than because they represent best welfare practice. The scale — hundreds of billions of individuals — means improving fish slaughter methods could represent one of the largest per-effort welfare improvements available in the food system. The technology for humane fish slaughter exists; the barrier is cost and regulatory requirement.