Extracts from this report are now available in French from Les Cahiers antispécistes:

• Le pire a lieu en mer
  Les méthodes de la pêche commerciale
• Combien de poissons sont pêchés par an ?

The summary report is available in a German adaptation by the Swiss fish welfare organisation fair-fish:

• Auf See geht es schlimmer zu:
  Leid und Wohl gefangener Wildfische

If fish could scream

This article by Peter Singer, published on the Project Syndicate website on 13 Sep 2010, discusses animal suffering in commercial fishing and is available in several languages.

Progress towards better welfare at slaughter for wild fish and other marine creatures

Papers and posters etc from these two excellent symposia, held in Portsmouth, UK in July 2011 by the Universities Federation for Animal Welfare and the Humane Slaughter association, included:

• A presentation on research into humane slaughter of fish on fishing vessels using dry electric stunning
• A poster presentation: “Improving Welfare in Commercial Fishing- constraints and opportunities”
• Other poster presentations on the welfare of fish in commercial fishing
• A presentation on the sentiency of decapod crustacea
• A poster presentation: “Humane slaughter of crustaceans”
• Presentations on the welfare of farmed fish
• The 2011 Humane Slaughter Association Award awarded for work in humane slaughter technology for farmed fish.

Presentation: Electrical stunning of captured fish.
See p18 of HSA Speaker Abstracts

This presentation at the HSA conference describes a study on board Norwegian vessels to establish the time taken for cod and haddock to lose consciousness; to test the viability of carrying out humane slaughter at sea and its effect on fishery operations. The research is being prepared for publication.

During an experimental trawl carried out over a 3-4 hour period (rather shorter than the usual commercial trawl), cod and haddock were landed on board. To test the length of consciousness out of water, the team took five fish shortly after landing and another five every half hour until processing was near completion two hours later. These fish were tested for brain and heart function by EEG and ECG respectively and for behavioural signs of awareness.

After two hours of storage out of water, the cod appeared motionless. However, the EEG test showed that all still showed signs of consciousness. This suggests that the welfare benefits of early stunning and humane slaughter are considerable.

The fish were stunned using a dry-stunning system which had been installed on the boat. This is preferred to a wet-stunning system since a higher current is required in salt water, resulting in tissue damage¹. EEG recordings were used to show that a voltage of 52 V_rms at a frequency of 100 Hz for 1 s produces sufficient current to stun cod or haddock. They are then cut and bled to kill them before consciousness returns.

The fish are fed into the dry chamber from a water tank. Recently, equipment has been devised to ensure that fish enter the stunning chamber in not more than one layer of animals. The issue of a sound dosing system² needs further investigation.

The fishermen responded favourably to the system. Stunned fish are easier to handle, reducing the time taken to gut and rinse them.

The same team is also conducting research in the Netherlands with Dutch fishermen who wish to improve welfare. Early research using EEG measurements on the flatfish turbot and sole suggests that these species can be stunned with a voltage of 100 V_rms. Studies on dab have also started and work on plaice is planned.

¹The other alternative method commonly used for farmed marine fish is percussive stunning.

²i.e. to prevent the fish being exposed to pre-shocks. Dosing systems for electrical stunning after dewatering have been developed for farmed species like eel, A. catfish, a hybrid of A. catfish and Vundu catfish and Atlantic salmon.


Poster presentation: Improving welfare in commercial fishing – constraints and opportunities.
See p34 of UFAW Poster Abstracts

This poster presentation, at the UFAW symposium, outlines some examples of fisheries using more humane methods of capture and employing, or experimenting with, humane slaughter methods. Semi-automated percussive stunners for wild fish are currently under development and preliminary results suggest these can provide a marked improvement in quality. It concludes that wild salmon may be one good place to start in developing humane models of fishing since:

• Some salmon fishers are already using humane slaughter methods
• These fish are often handed individually and “carefully”
• It is a high value species
• Consumers often look to wild salmon as a higher welfare alternative to farmed salmon

and that a premium market in better welfare may help bring better practice across the whole industry. Information in this poster is reproduced at: developing-humane-models-of-fishing


Other presentations on the welfare of fish in commercial fishing
See p26 of HSA Poster Abstracts
See p63 of UFAW Poster Abstracts

Poster presentation “Humane capture & slaughter of commercially-caught wild fish – An emerging issue” argues that the welfare of fish in commercial fishing is a major animal welfare issue on account of the severity and duration of suffering caused and the large numbers of animals involved.

This welfare issue is also included in the survey of veterinary surgeons presented in the poster “Prioritising issues in animal welfare: findings from an online survey of veterinary surgeons”.

Presentation: “Do crustaceans experience pain?”
See p9 of HSA Speaker Abstracts

When Professor Elwood was asked this question by Rick Stein he decided to investigate. Vast numbers of these animals are eaten, a fact which he illustrates as follows: if you ate beef every day you might consume 25 individual cattle over a lifetime whereas the same number of individual prawns could be consumed in just a single prawn cocktail.

In his experiments crabs and hermit crabs demonstrated avoidance learning when subjected to electric shocks. Hermit crabs subjected to electric shocks in their shells were more likely to leave their shell if it was a preferred type of shell, indicating some motivational trade-off. Given new shells, shocked hermit crabs investigated the new shell more quickly and entered it more quickly, i.e. were more motivated to find and accept a new shell, and this change lasted 24 hours. In experiments with glass prawns, when acetic acid or sodium hydroxide was applied to the animals’ antenna prolonged rubbing was observed. This behaviour was inhibited when local anaesthetic was applied. These experiments suggest that responses to noxious stimuli by decapod crustaceans are more than reflexes and that a feeling of pain may be involved.


Poster presentation: “Humane slaughter of crustaceans”
See p8 of HSA Poster Abstracts

This poster describes the ethical and humane killing of crabs, lobsters, langoustine and other decapods crustacean by electro-stunning. The problem with crustaceans is how to stun an animal that has an exoskeleton and doesn’t have a central nervous system. The solution is to stun the animal partially immersed in salt water, to create good contact between the belly and the base electrode, while the stun electrode makes contact with the back of the shellfish. A 110AC voltage is applied and a typical stun current of 4-8 A flows through the animal which is rendered unconscious in less than half a second until prolonged application of the current kills it. A current duration of 5s kills lobsters and langoustines while 10s is needed to kill crabs.

Two (“Crustastun”) machines are commercially available for doing this – a countertop stunner for restaurants and retailers and a batch stunner for shellfish processors. Electro-stunning of crustaceans also brings improved eating quality benefits and can prolong shelf-life.


Presentations on the welfare of farmed fish
See p4 and p8 of HSA Speaker Abstracts
See pages 5, 6, 16, 20, 23, 30 and 31 of HSA Poster Abstracts
See p64 of UFAW Poster Abstracts

A wide range of presentations relating to the welfare of farmed fish was also presented.


Presentation of the “2011 Humane Slaughter Association Award”
This award was presented to joint winners for their work in the development of humane slaughter technology for farmed fish:

• Jeff Lines of Silsoe Livestock Systems for his research into electrical methods for humane stunning and killing
• John Ace-Hopkins of Ace Aquatec Limited for taking up this research in the development of commercial humane stunning and killing equipment.

How can humane models of fishing be developed? As discussed below, some artisanal fishers are already using humane methods of slaughter with relatively more humane capture methods, and some research is currently investigating the use of percussive and dry electrical stunning machines which could be used on trawl-caught and other fish. Fishers who are already bleeding the fish may be the most likely to begin to adopt humane slaughter methods since humane stunning would only involve adding another step in a current process. Humane slaughter methods may be easier for artisanal fishers since some are already employing them but, on the other hand, larger fishing operations will have economies of scale with the use of humane slaughter technology.

The fishing methods which appear to have the greatest potential for humane capture include:

• fast hook and line methods where use of live bait fish is avoided
• trapping where traps are retrieved in short intervals
• use of surrounding nets.

Sections 1. to 3. below show some fisheries employing humane slaughter methods. Note that we have not conducted any welfare assessment of them but are simply reporting their use of potentially humane slaughter methods from information given on their websites or by email:

1. Fisheries using manual humane slaughter methods
2. Fisheries using more automated humane slaughter methods
3. Humane slaughter as part of certification
4. Correspondence with MSC-certified fishery companies
5. Costs, benefits, constraints & opportunities

1. Fisheries using manual humane slaughter methods

Trolling for salmon.
Credit: Eric Jordan.

Usan Fisheries percussively despatching a salmon.
Credit: Usan Fisheries^TM.

2. Fisheries using more automated humane slaughter methods

Wild Salmon Direct.
Credit: Wild Salmon Direct on YouTube.

The humane slaughter technology used by Wild Salmon Direct is marketed on quality and efficiency by Seafood Innovations International Group Pty Ltd who wrote:

“Seafood Innovations are also developing simple systems to help stun and bleed fish at the first opportunity after harvest. Preliminary results so far have suggested that this can provide a marked improvement in quality as a motivator for better handling practices. The SI technology is seen as a good potential solution in handling fish from, trawl, seine-net and long-line.”

Recent research into the humane slaughter of trawl-caught fish using electrical dry-stunning was discussed at the Humane Slaughter Association’s Centenary International Symposium (see our reports from the ufaw and hsa symposia portsmouth july 2011).

3. Humane slaughter as part of certification

percussive stunning in the fair-fish certification scheme
Credit: fair-fish

• animal welfare
• sustainability and
• fair trade.

Fishery : Wildcatch^TM salmon
Country : Alaska
Year : 2000
Fishing methods nets
Slaughter method : manual spiking followed by bleeding.

Wildcatch^TM was certified organic in 2000. One of the organic standards that this company addressed was the humane slaughter of the catch. Wildcatch^TM told us:

“It may not seem practical to humanely slaughter net caught salmon. However, I think many could be stunned or pricked just prior to the bleeding process. Those that have taken the steps to bleed and refrigerate would be the best recruits to humanely slaughter as these fishers have already embraced change. Monetary incentives paid for bleeding are approximately $0.05 per lb to fishers plus refrigeration of $0.12 per lb. Quality bonuses are also given by salmon buyer at the end of the season based on their sales in the market for his whole pack.”

One of the primary reasons for their pursuit of the organic label was to have a processing chain of custody that would allow them to make up their own set of standards/rules that each fisher would have to sign off to.

Unfortunately organic certification was not continued due to the inherent difficulty of marketing food from wild fish as organic.

4. Correspondence with MSC-certified fishery companies

Several spokespeople and fishing companies for fisheries certified for sustainability by the Marine Stewardship Council were contacted, including Alsakan’s Own^TM and Wildcatch^TM discussed in the sections above. A fisherman representing a larger fishing company responded:

“We are already struggling hard to compete in the market…because of the general market‟s focus on cheap food …with limited focus on sustainability, working conditions, health/nutrition etc. Since we are large suppliers of fish to the world markets, we are not in a position to market our fish as niche products, and have to direct attention to the mass/large markets… “Economic implications would involve extra worker(s), redesign of fish receiving area of vessel (if possible with respect to area constraints), investment in permissible stunning system (various legal constraints on use of stunning, tranquilizing or similar, and unclear basis for defining what would be considered ‘humane’).”

5. Costs, benefits, constraints & opportunities

Benefits from improving welfare include:

1. Better flesh quality from humane slaughter (if fish are not too stressed before landing)
2. Added welfare quality leading to:
   • welfare premiums
   • new markets
   • better welfare choices for consumers
   • more sustainable jobs in fishing.

Economic costs include:

1. Additional labour required per fish for catching and handling
2. Reduced catch sizes in some cases (e.g. from shorter capture durations)
3. Equipment costs for humane slaughter and fish handling (e.g. pumps) technology
4. Redesign of vessels may be required.

Other constraints include:

1. Humane slaughter and handling technology requires further development for larger fishing operations
2. Lack of recognition of this welfare issue among stakeholders
3. Assurance will be more challenging on fishing vessels.

Opportunities

Fishers for whom quality and ethical seafood is part of the branding appear to be the most likely to seek to improve welfare. Many artisanal fishers may be using methods which could be made more humane relatively easily. One good place to start may be wild salmon since:

• Some salmon fishers are already using humane slaughter methods
• These fish are often handed individually and “carefully”
• It is a high value species
• Consumers often look to wild salmon as a higher welfare alternative to farmed salmon.

A premium market in better welfare may help bring better practice across the whole industry.

In this Edwardian novel the ethics of inhumane treatment of wild-caught fish is raised through the heroine, Anna, who is out fishing with friends. Anna empathises with the mackerel that have been caught, unhooked and left to suffocate in a box and is appalled that a live fish has a piece cut out of it to be used for bait. A process of desensitisation to animal suffering is also shown:

Full text is available here.

Concern for the welfare of fish species, like that for other animals, is not new. Here are some examples of humane attitudes towards fishes and complex invertebrates found in literature and religion:

• Arnold Bennett
• D H Lawrence
• Thomas of Celano
• Tu Fu

Anna of the five towns
Arnold Bennett (1867 – 1931)
In this Edwardian novel the ethics of inhumane treatment of wild-caught fish is raised through the heroine, Anna, who is out fishing with friends more…

First life of St Francis, cc. 61, 77
Thomas of Celano (c 1200 – c 1265)
This earliest biography of Saint Francis, based on the testimony of Francis’ close companions, describes his fatherly affection not only towards people but also towards dumb and wild animals including fish. It tells a story in which Saint Francis takes pity on a captured fish and returns him to the lake more…

Hsin yeh-fe shih
Tu Fu (712 – 770)

“I see shining fish struggling within tight nets, while I hear orioles singing carefree tunes. Even trivial creatures know the difference between freedom and bondage. Sympathy and compassion should be but natural to the human heart.”

Taken from The Extended Circle, ed. Jon Wynne-Tyson 1985 1st edition.

Sea and Sardinia
D H Lawrence (1885 – 1930)

“An inkpot…is a polyp, a little octopus which, alas, frequents the Mediterranean and squirts ink if offended…Alessandro caught inkpots: and like this. He tied up a female by a string…through a convenient hole in her end…When Alessandro went a-fishing, he towed her, like a poodle, behind. And thus, like a poodly-bitch, she attracted hangers-on in the briny seas. And these poor polyp inamorati were the victims. They were lifted as prey aboard, where I looked with horror on their grey, translucent tentacles and large, cold, stony eyes. The she-polyp was towed behind again. But after a few days she died. And I think, even for creatures so awful-looking, this method is indescribably base, and shows how much lower than an octopus even is lordly man.”

Taken from The Extended Circle, ed. Jon Wynne-Tyson 1985 1st edition.

Do fish feel pain?
V. Braithwaite 2010.

Dr Victoria Braithwaite makes the science behind the debate around pain in fish accessible to non-scientists. She describes the many different pieces of evidence that together build up a picture of fish as animals that, she concludes, “have the mental capacity to feel pain”:

Dr Braithwaite begins by discussing pain in humans. Pain is a process which is considered as having two distinct parts. The first part is the detection of potentially harmful stimuli (eg high temperature) by pain receptors in the skin. These pain receptors are called “nociceptors” because they detect noxious stimuli, and the process is called “nociception”. This results in messages being sent via nerves to the brain. The second part is the emotional response generated in consequence, whereby the person actually feels pain, and this is much less well understood. The crucial question for animal welfare is whether fish also experience an unpleasant emotional response to painful events.

The fish biologist describes how she and her colleagues found nociceptors in the face of trout, and that these nociceptors were active when exposed to harmful stimuli (high temperature, high pressure and acetic acid). Nociception must be involved if an animal feels pain. However nociception is not, in itself, considered sufficient evidence for the ability to feel pain, since primitive animals which don’t have central nervous systems, such as anemones, show nociceptive-like responses.

The behaviour of animals in response to events has often been studied as an indication of the animal’s emotional state. Dr Braithwaite’s team devised some experiments to see how a fish’s behaviour would be affected by a painful experience. They found that trout injected in the lip with bee venom or vinegar displayed abnormal behaviours. Their breathing rates dramatically increased. Some rubbed their lips on the tank walls and substrate while some rocked from side to side on their pectoral fins. These may have been their way of trying to relieve the irritation. The fish failed to feed for several hours, despite having gone without food that day. This research was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London in May 2003 and attained much media interest. At this point, Dr Braithwaite’s response to the “do fish feel pain” question was “well possibly…”.

Could they be sure that the abnormal behaviour seen in response to painful injections was evidence of a negative emotional experience? The team wanted to see if higher order behaviour was affected and conducted some experiments to see how a normal fear response was affected by pain. Trout are naturally afraid of novel objects and will keep their distance for some time. When a Lego tower was introduced into a tank containing trout, the fish displayed this fear response. However, for fish that had been injected with vinegar, the fish failed to keep their distance. Their fear response had been diminished by the effect of the injection, suggesting that their attention was dominated by pain.

The book then considers the related question of whether fish are conscious. Many people have argued that an animal must be conscious to experience pain. The author first gives some impressive examples of evidence that fish can construct internal representations of their environment. Goldfish can learn to navigate mazes using memory. Gobies that have become confined in a rockpool because the tide has gone out, can accurately jump to neighbouring rockpools they cannot see because they learned a map of the depressions in the locality when the tide was in. She also demonstrates that cichlid fish are capable of logical deduction.

Recent scientific research has found evidence of a limbic system in the fish brain. The limbic system in the human brain is believed to be responsible for emotions. Scientists have shown that the brain is active when fish (goldfish, trout, salmon) experience painful stimuli. Dr Braithwaite describes an experiment in which a trout can choose between two areas of a tank, in one of which it will receive electric shocks while in the other it does not. Normally the trout avoids the former. However, if by being in the area where it will receive electric shocks it is also nearer to another fish, then the trout chooses to remain in this area because it is a social animal. The trout’s response to electric shocks is therefore context-dependent, suggesting that conscious emotional decision-making is involved.

The book’s author then gives a surprising example of fish behaviour, involving cooperation between groupers and eels, which suggests that fish also have self-consciousness. In this context, self-consciousness means the ability to think about your own actions, to consider different possible scenarios, and to modify your decisions on how to act as necessary. Think of all the examples you know of animals that hunt together. With the exception of those involving humans, they are all between animals of the same species. This example of cooperative hunting between two different species of fish, groupers and eels, is striking.

Groupers are large predatory fish that hunt smaller reef fish in open water. Moray eels, on the other hand, slither through crevices in coral reefs to corner their prey in holes. Fish avoid eel predation by swimming into open water, and avoid grouper predation by hiding in crevices. Imagine what a formidable hunting team these two species would make together. As Dr Braithwaite explains, a recent report shows these two fish have developed a way of communicating with one another to do just that.

When a grouper chases a prey fish, its quarry may seek refuge in a small hole on the reef. It then becomes a sit-and-wait game because the grouper can’t follow the fish into reef crevices. Groupers have learnt that when this happens, they can go and get help. The grouper moves off in search of an eel and, when a potential hunting partner is found, signals to it by vigorously shaking its head. The eel can choose to ignore the signal but often it responds by leaving its crevice to follow the grouper, and is led to where the prey fish was last seen. The eel then starts to explore the reef around that area. Sometimes the grouper shows the eel where the fish went in by performing a headstand accompanied with more head shaking. In response, the eel swims to the location and enters the reef.

On roughly half the occasions, the eel flushes the prey fish from the reef and the waiting grouper darts in and snatches its meal. On many other occasions, the eel corners the prey within the reef and gains a meal itself. While we don’t have clear footage of the whole story, aspects of this cooperative behaviour may been seen in the youtube clips below.

The moray eel and the grouper represent an example of a “sophisticated, complex behaviour that requires the hunting partners to communicate and recognise each other’s intentions”. If we consider cooperative hunting as an example of self-consciousness, argues Dr Braithwaite, then surely this is evidence of self-consciouness in fish?

If we accept that birds and mammals can feel suffer, the author says, then that there is now sufficient evidence that fish can too. This book is written in everyday language in a narrative style. We recommend this book to all with a curiosity for what animals think and feel.

Victoria Braithwaite is Professor of Fisheries and Biology at Penn State University, USA and a Visiting Professor of Biology, University of Bergen, Norway.

grouper and eel hunting cooperation on youtube

In this clip we see a grouper approach an eel resting in its crevice and signal, with headshaking movements, close to the eels head:

In this clip, a grouper leads an eel off to hunt:

In this clip a grouper shows an eel (out of view) where the prey fish was last seen by performing a headstand accompanied by head shaking:

In this clip, an eel responds to the headstand with head shaking signal by exploring the area:

J. D. Metcalfe

This is the first published paper to identify the key welfare issues in the capture of commercially-caught fish and how the capture process could be made more humane.

As Dr Metcalfe explains, most fish caught in commercial fisheries are not intentionally slaughtered but die in the process or harvesting and are frequently gutted alive. There is little or no regulation concerning the handling and killing of these animals. The author tellingly points out that:

“…it could be argued that no pig or sheep farmer would be allowed to treat pigs or sheep the way commercial fishermen are allowed to treat fishes”

and that, for example,

“…in the UK, animal welfare (including farming and aquaculture) is currently regulated by the Animal Welfare Act 2006 yet nothing in this Act applies in relation to anything which occurs in the normal course of fishing”.

The growing concern for animal welfare in general suggests that welfare in wild-capture fisheries is likely to further move up the public agenda.

There are many different types of fishing involving nets or hooks. There are many different aspects to consider in making the process more humane. These include the impact on target fish and also the fish that escape trawl nets before landing, and those that are discarded after landing because they are the wrong size or species. The fates of target, escaping and discarded fish are helpfully illustrated in a diagram. There are, Dr Metcalfe argues, some key welfare questions to be asked about current fishing practices, such as:

1. How specific is the gear or capture method for the target species?
2. What trauma or distress does the gear or capture method cause and how can this be reduced?
3. For those fishes that are landed alive, is the method of killing humane?
4. Does the gear cause damage to escapees, and if so can this be reduced?
5. Can discarding practices be modified to improve long-term survival?

The time between first encountering the gear and final death is identified as an important factor affecting welfare and it may be possible to reduce this. Some types of gear may reduce the damage caused to escaping fish. Then there are practices that are considered much less acceptable, such as live-finning sharks which has been campaigned against by welfare organizations such as the UK’s Sharks’ Trust (www.sharktrust.org) and partially prohibited.

The paper recognizes that more humane fishing practice may lead to higher costs of fishing and that there may be conflicts between what is acceptable welfare and what is economically acceptable. One potential solution is offered by welfare premiums. Cornish fishers (www.cornishtuna.com) have recently started troll fishing for albacore tuna in which fish are stunned and killed soon after landing and bycatch is minimal. Tuna caught this way have a value several times that of those caught in nets. Welfare improvement may be possible through schemes that currently exist to raise standards of fish quality, such as the Responsible Fishing scheme (rfs.seafish.org), which may increasing adopt standards that relate to welfare. Such standards could increasingly become a condition for supply.

Link to paper

P. Sandøe, C. Gamborg S. Kadri and K. Millar

Now that the welfare of farmed fish has been raised, there is every reason to expect an emerging discussion concerning the welfare of fish in capture fisheries, alongside discussion on conservation. Based on the experience of previous debates on animal use, the authors argue that the fishing industry can benefit from positively engaging in this discussion as it arises. There is a need, they say, for substantial ethical debate around the needs of people and effects on fishes in capture fisheries.

Consideration of the needs of people should include a number of issues such as the sustainability of fishing; acceptability of feeding wild fish to farm animals and impacts of fishing activity on poor local communities who may not benefit from it.

Consideration of the affects of fishing on fishes is controversial since the growing evidence that fish can suffer is not accepted by everyone¹. Yet if the arguments made against fish sentience are valid, they could be extended to cover most farmed species, which to most people will serve as proof that these arguments must be flawed. This debate is not dissimilar to past discussions of farm animal welfare, and for much of the 20th Century the suffering of farm animals was debated and contested. Developments in animal welfare science in that last two decades have since lead to approaches that reduce farm animal suffering.

An ethical debate should attempt a balancing of the many aspects of the needs of people, the welfare of fish and protection of nature. Those involved in commercial fisheries should be willing to take a critical look at traditional practices.

Link to paper

1. For discussion on fish sentience see fish are sentient and do fish feel pain?

F. A. Huntingford and S. Kadri

This paper briefly describes the recent development of fish welfare science and some of its complexities vis-a-vis different scientific approaches to fish welfare, its definition and measurement. It goes on to ask how industry has responded to concern about fish welfare; where and why this has been successful; and how this knowledge gained could benefit welfare in commercial fishing.

From the early 1990s there was a steady increase in the number of published papers relating to welfare in aquaculture, including fish health, effects of transport and stocking density, and slaughter. Research is currently being conducted to obtain “welfare indicators” that could measure welfare outcomes on fish farms.

The authors briefly explain three different approaches¹, or frameworks, to defining good animal welfare: function-based; nature-based and feelings-based. The function-based approach considers whether the health of the animal is good whereas the nature-based approach considers whether the animal is living a natural life. The feelings-based approach considers whether the animal is free from suffering, and this is the most important question from an animal-friendly perspective. These different approaches can lead to different conclusions about good welfare. The authors suggest research to map these frameworks onto each other as a longer-term means of reconciling these different approaches.

The paper argues that some improvements have been made in the welfare of farmed fish, including creation of good practice guidelines and regulations. The fact that intensive aquaculture is a relatively new industry and less set in its traditional ways may have helped these improvements, as might the fact that improved welfare often promotes productivity. They highlight the contribution made by welfare certification schemes to improving the welfare of farmed fish, such as the RSPCA Freedom Food Scheme to which 80% Scottish farmed salmon belong.

The authors identify 3 specific areas of fish welfare knowledge acquired by the Aquaculture industry that might be particularly helpful for improving welfare in capture fisheries i.e. that relating to:

• incentivising stakeholders through an ethical premium
• welfare implications of fish handling practices, especially crowding and slaughter
• technology for improving welfare, especially humane slaughter

and hope for a constructive exchange on these issues.

Link to paper

1. For brief disucssion on these 3 approaches to assessing good welfare see what is animal welfare