Cleaner Fish: A Neglected Issue Within A Neglected Issue
A Fishes Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM Martine Klock Fleten, Faunalytics.org
February 2021

Since 2013, more than half of all fish products has come from fish farms rather than wild-caught fishes.... Each year millions of 'cleaner fish' are stocked in salmon farms to 'clean' salmon of sea lice, leading to their suffering and death. This blog explores the issue and its welfare implications.

Photo by NaturalWorldLover

The world’s appetite for fish products has been growing rapidly for the past couple of decades. Production of fish and other “seafood” is now over four times higher than it was in the 1960s, and the average global citizen today eats nearly twice the amount that they did then.

Since 2013, more than half of all fish products has come from fish farms rather than wild-caught fishes. It is estimated that between 73 and 180 billion fishes live on farms each year, based on numbers from 2015. Many different species of fishes are being farmed, with carps being one of the most numerous. In Europe the dominant species are salmonids such as Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout, with an estimated 1,889 million individual Atlantic salmon and 470 million rainbow trout slaughtered globally in 2015, not counting the high numbers of fish that die before slaughter.

These numbers are difficult to estimate as fish are killed in such high quantities, and fish are given such little moral consideration that slaughter data is recorded in tons rather than individual fishes.

These staggering numbers mean that fish are currently the most farmed vertebrate in the world, and the production of farmed fish is also projected to expand in all regions of the world in the future. This results in an enormous animal welfare issue, given that numerous studies have provided evidence that fish have the capacity to suffer both physically and emotionally. Not only can they feel pain and suffer in conditions such as low water quality, crowding, stressful handling, disease, and inability to display natural behaviors, but they can also learn from and remember painful experiences, which means they later experience stress and fear in similar situations. Despite this, fish welfare appears to be highly neglected both in the industry and, to a degree, in animal advocacy.

Fish farming practices lag far behind what scientific evidence of fish sentience and needs would suggest are acceptable living conditions. Furthermore, few campaigns by animal charities have focused on fish welfare, although this is beginning to change....

 

Please read ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE (PDF) Cleaner Fish: A Neglected Issue Within A Neglected Issue

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