Overview of emerging welfare benchmarking approaches for farmed fish welfare assessment.
Farmed fish welfare benchmarking is developing more rapidly as the evidence base for fish sentience and welfare indicators strengthens. Sea lice burden benchmarking in salmon is the most established tool, linked to treatment and management requirements. Fin damage, wound assessment, and pre-slaughter welfare monitoring are developing as benchmarking indicators. Open data standards for fish welfare benchmarking would significantly advance the field. Supporting benchmarking development is a leverage point for fish welfare improvement.