Abstract
Fish welfare is an essential issue that needs to be tackled by the aquaculture industry. In order to address it, studies have been limited to a small number of species and the information is generally scattered. In order to have a consistent overview of the welfare of farmed fishes, we present the FishEthoBase, an open-access database that ultimately aims to provide information on the welfare of all fish species currently farmed worldwide. Presently with 41 species, this database is directed to all stakeholders in the field and targets not only to bridge the gaps between them but also to provide scientific information to improve the welfare of fish. The current text explains the database and presents an analysis of the welfare scores of 41 species, suggesting that (i) the general welfare state of farmed fishes is poor, (ii) there is some potential for improvement and (iii) this potential is related to research on species’ needs, but (iv) there are many remaining knowledge gaps and (v) current fish farming technologies do not seem to fully address welfare issues. The existence of a framework, such as the FishEthoBase, is proposed as fundamental to the design of strategies that improve the welfare of farmed fish.
Highlights
Aquaculture is presently the main source of sea food products for human consumption, with approximately 80 million tonnes of harvested fish in 2016 [1]
In some species and life stages these dimensions may potentially match the natural behaviour of the species (e.g., C. idella [34], O. niloticus [35,36], S. aurata [37,38], C. gariepinus [39,40]) while in most cases this does not happen and may, have a negative effect in fish welfare [41]
The negative effects may be mitigated if farmers provide the animals with the resources they are migrating for, e.g., access to mates, target feed or season-appropriate environmental conditions
Summary
Aquaculture is presently the main source of sea food products for human consumption, with approximately 80 million tonnes of harvested fish in 2016 [1]. Research has pushed the physiological limits of many fish species in growth, fertility and size, as a consequence of (or resulting in) highly artificial conditions [6] This creates an obvious issue regarding welfare: Fish are sentient beings [7,8,9] and each species has evolved for millennia in natural contexts, developing adaptations, behaviours and coping mechanisms which are relevant for those contexts [10]. Phenotypic plasticity may surely play a role in the adaptation of a fish species to artificial rearing [25,26,27,28] it is imperative to understand the ethology or natural behavioural repertoire of farmed animals in order to evaluate their welfare conditions and implement measures to mitigate the effects of life in captivity. Use these data to assess the general welfare state of farmed fishes presently and use the scoring scheme in the database (FishEthoScore) to provide an outlook on the potential of fish species to be farmed in good welfare
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