Fish farms in coastal and riverine settings often come into conflict with wildlife predators including seals, herons, and otters, raising welfare and conservation dilemmas.
Predator conflicts at aquaculture sites create welfare dilemmas involving multiple species. Farmed fish suffer from predator intrusion injuries and stress. Wildlife predators — seals, otters, herons, ospreys — face lethal control, entanglement in deterrent nets, and acoustic harassment with potential hearing damage. The welfare solution is physical exclusion rather than deterrence or lethal control, but requires capital investment. Regulations increasingly require non-lethal methods to be tried first, protecting both wildlife welfare and conservation status of protected predator species.