Sea urchin aquaculture is growing rapidly to supply high-value seafood markets, with welfare questions centred on the sentience of echinoderms and the welfare of wild-caught broodstock.
Sea urchin sentience is genuinely uncertain, but the precautionary principle suggests that welfare consideration is appropriate given their nociceptive capacity. In aquaculture, the welfare concerns are primarily around wild broodstock capture and transport, and the conditions of grow-out systems. Crowding, handling, and suboptimal water conditions cause behavioural stress responses. As sea urchin aquaculture expands, there is an opportunity to integrate welfare consideration into system design at an early stage, avoiding the welfare problems that have required retrospective correction in more established aquaculture sectors.