Fish slaughter methods vary considerably in their welfare implications, with percussion and electrical stunning the most welfare-positive options for farmed salmonids.
Fish slaughter welfare is one of the most impactful single improvements available in aquaculture given the billions of fish killed annually. Replacing ice slurry and CO2 with percussive or electrical stunning before killing reduces the duration of suffering at slaughter from minutes to milliseconds. Cost considerations are often cited as barriers, but welfare-positive stunning methods add minimal cost at scale and transform end-of-life welfare.