Assessing fish welfare in aquaculture requires developing validated indicators appropriate to fish biology. The science of fish welfare assessment is advancing rapidly with practical implications for farm management.
Fish welfare assessment in aquaculture requires developing and validating indicators appropriate to aquatic animals that differ fundamentally from terrestrial species in their biology and behaviour. The development of operational welfare indicators for Atlantic salmon represents significant scientific progress, providing farm managers with actionable metrics for welfare monitoring without the subjectivity of visual impression assessments. Automated camera monitoring and water cortisol sampling offer non-invasive welfare assessment routes that avoid the additional stress of individual fish handling. The challenge of applying welfare indicators at scale in large sea cage populations with millions of fish per unit requires technological solutions including computer vision and environmental sensor arrays. Progress in this area is translating scientific understanding of fish sentience into practical management tools.