Aquaculture and Fish Welfare: Are the Rights of Fish Compromised?/ Akwakultura I Dobrostan Ryb: Czy Prawa Ryb Są Szanowane?

Abstract

Abstract Fish need adequate welfare in culture even more than when they are in the wild. This is because they are held in captivity against their ‘will’. The welfare of farmed fish should start from production to consumption. Several factors have been identified as compromising the rights and welfare of fish in aquaculture. These include the aquacultural holding devices, stocking density, water quality, food and feeding regimes, diseases and parasite infestation, treatment of the diseases and parasites, handling, netting and removal before and during slaughter, methods of slaughter, fasting/ food withdrawal, unnatural dark/light photoperiods, selection for fast growth, selective and induced breeding, genetic manipulations, exposure to predators, polyculture, tagging, crowding, grading, transport and harvesting, fish attractors and accidental or deliberate introduction of genetically modified farmed fish. The best way to achieve good welfare and health of fish in aquaculture is to respect, maintain and improve the rights of fish, otherwise known as the “five freedoms.” Lack, deficiency or difficulty in having or providing any one of the five freedoms in aquaculture is an indicator of poor welfare for the fish which could be observed through physical, physiological, morphological, behavioural or environmental indicators in the fish. The best strategy for a reliable assessment of fish welfare/suffering and their impact on product quality is a multidisciplinary approach using several assessment parameters and comparing the deviations from the normal biological state with those from the wild which live in their natural, unperturbed environment. Some of the ways to achieve good welfare and safeguard the rights of the farmed fish in reducing the welfare problems were highlighted. Welfare of farmed fish should be considered in terms of ethics, productivity, economic viability and consumer’s acceptability of the final product. Consumers are becoming aware of the quality of farmed fish arising from poor welfare of the fish during culture. Improvement in fish welfare will increase profits, productivity and acceptability of the farmed fish because fish that are less stressedand humanely slaugh tered are healthier, grow better and have better meat quality. There is the need to develop common standard welfare indices for fish in culture in order to detect, correct and improve any deviation from the normal state of the fish in their aquacultural holding devices (AHD). It should be known that whatever is good in terms of welfare to humans should also be good to the fish in captivity.