Aquaculture Welfare

Farmed Salmon Welfare: Monitoring Technology Advances

New technologies including underwater cameras, acoustic sensors and AI analysis are transforming real-time welfare monitoring in salmon aquaculture.

Key Facts

Underwater camera systems with AI analysis can detect abnormal swimming, surface breathing and lice counting
Acoustic sensors detect stress-related behaviours including surface feeding and avoidance responses
Continuous oxygen and temperature monitoring enables rapid response to welfare-threatening changes
Machine learning systems can identify individual fish and track their welfare over time
Data from continuous monitoring can demonstrate welfare improvement to certification auditors

Welfare Considerations

Continuous monitoring technology offers a transformative opportunity to detect welfare problems before they become acute. Traditional welfare monitoring through spot-checks and quarterly audits misses welfare events occurring between assessments. Technologies that alert farm staff to developing hypoxia, lice burden changes or disease-related behaviour in real time enable faster response and shorter welfare event duration.

What You Can Do

Support aquaculture certification schemes that include continuous monitoring requirements
Learn about the welfare technology being developed for salmon farming
Advocate for welfare monitoring technology to be a standard requirement for larger aquaculture operations
Choose salmon from operations that use continuous welfare monitoring systems