Atlantic salmon farming is the most valuable farmed fish industry globally. A comprehensive welfare overview integrates the multiple challenges across the full production cycle.
Atlantic salmon welfare encompasses a cascade of interconnected challenges across a multi-year production cycle. Hatchery welfare affects smolt quality and sea cage performance. Sea lice management involves trade-offs between infestation suffering and treatment stress. Stocking density management affects crowding stress throughout. Disease management, particularly for amoebic gill disease and infectious salmon anaemia, creates welfare crises. Pre-slaughter handling and stunning practices determine end-of-life welfare. Each stage has welfare-specific challenges and opportunities for improvement. Consumer demand for certified sustainable and welfare-conscious salmon, combined with regulatory requirements, is driving gradual industry-wide welfare improvement. The welfare case and the sustainability case for better salmon farming practices are closely aligned.