ARA Program Updates: Investigating our Theory of Change
For the first time, aquaculture—the world’s fastest-growing food industry—has surpassed wild capture as humanity's main source of fishes.
As aquaculture grows, fish welfare must grow, too.
Causes of Suffering
While welfare issues vary in type and severity from farm to farm, the broad causes of suffering farmed fishes face include:
Overcrowding
Poor water quality
Ineffective and absent pre-slaughter stunning
Diseases and parasites
Inability to express their natural behaviors
Given salmons’ natural migratory and predatory drives, keeping these animals in sea cages may be fundamentally unsuitable for their welfare. As seen above, salmons may exhibit behaviors such as leaping from the water as they try to remove parasitic sea lice from their bodies. Learn more. Ed Shephard / We Animals
Our Impact
We work to improve the lives of farmed fishes in two main ways:
Keep Exploring
Fish Sentience
Do Fish Feel Pain? by Victoria Braithwaite
What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins by Jonathan Balcombe