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It’s Been Thirty Years. Fish Are Still Waiting.

Thirty years ago, the UK Government was first advised to introduce species-specific slaughter laws for farmed fish. These animals suffer and feel pain, yet decades on, they still don’t have the most basic legal protections in place.

That advice was repeated in 2014, and again in 2023, when the Animal Welfare Committee’s scientific advisors recommended clear, species-specific legal protections for farmed fish at the point of slaughter.

The Government still hasn’t acted, and farmed fish are left paying the ultimate price.

Take action now!

Take Action: Email Your MP

Your MP has the power to raise this issue directly inside Parliament and put pressure on the Minister responsible: Stephen Morgan, DEFRA’s Farming Minister.

Emails from constituents carry real political weight. MPs pay attention when people in their constituency speak up.

To send your email, use this Parliament tool to find your MP. After you search your postcode, you can find your MP’s constituency email. Then you can:

  • Add your address below and it will pre-fill in your email, letting your MP know you’re writing as their constituent.
  • Review and personalise the pre-written message if you wish, personal touches make all the difference. Please remember to keep it polite!
  • Hit ‘send email’ to open your ready-made draft. Don’t forget to add in your MP’s email. After you hit send, your email will go directly to their inbox.
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If you’re having any tech issues with the above tool, feel free to hit ‘copy to clipboard’, for each element and paste into an email manually! Or you can click here to open up the draft. You can still mark that you completed the action by clicking ‘I did this’. Thank you for your dedication to animals!

The Reality Farmed Fish Face Today

Right now, tens of millions of farmed fish across the UK can be killed every year without legal protections that reflect how they actually experience pain and fear. They are at real risk of suffocating slowly in air or in ice, while fully conscious, with no legal requirement to prevent it.

In 2023, the Government’s own scientific advisors said this had to change. Their recommendation was clear: species-specific slaughter laws to avoid farmed fish experiencing extreme and prolonged suffering in their final moments of life.

This same recommendation was made by the Committee in 1996, but decades later, that recommendation still sits untouched. In that time, there has never been a welfare inspection in a farmed fish abattoir in England and Wales.

The Government promised in its Animal Welfare Strategy that it would enact slaughter laws for these often forgotten animals, but since then there has been no consultation. No bill. No law. Just more farmed fish, every day, are at risk of dying in exactly the way the Government’s own experts warned against. 

Fish should not be killed for human consumption at all. But while we’re fighting for this to end, the very least they’re owed is legal protection to eliminate some of the most extreme suffering they currently endure.

Email your MP now!

Want to take further action? Add your voice

Fish feel pain and fear, just like any other animal, yet UK law offers them no meaningful protection at slaughter. Around 77 million are killed here every year, in slaughterhouses with no mandatory inspections and no CCTV. Sign the petition demanding the Government close this gap.

In the UK, up to 77 million fish are farmed and killed each year – that’s approximately 210,959 per day.

There is an abundance of scientific evidence highlighting that farmed fish and other aquatic animals have an ability to feel joy and to feel pain.

Despite this knowledge, fish are currently facing extreme suffering due to a lack of specific, meaningful protections in law.

Combined with a complete lack of regulatory oversight of farmed fish abattoirs, the aquaculture industry is being left to monitor itself in the eyes of the law.

The UK Government has a duty of care to farmed fish used by the UK aquaculture industry. It is critical to ensure that laws are put in place, compliance is maintained, and those failing to meet legal standards are penalised accordingly.

Therefore, we, the undersigned, are calling on the UK Government to implement the following as a matter of priority:

  • Fish must receive species-specific, meaningful provisions in the Welfare At Time Of Killing (WATOK) regulations, which currently only offers these detailed protections for farmed land animals
  • Consistency measures must be put in place, where a certain rate of failure in any welfare metric triggers machinery halt, requires summoning of a vet, and provokes an official inspection of the facility by a government official / neutral third-party
  • Fish slaughterhouses across Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland must be subject to regular announced and unannounced inspections to take place annually
  • Fish must receive ante-mortem welfare inspections from the relevant bodies in each country of the UK
  • CCTV must be a mandatory requirement in fish slaughterhouses, with monitoring from public bodies
fish swimming

Thank you {firstname}!

Before you go, remember that we are up against a huge, multi-million-pound industry. That is why one powerful way to ensure we can continue this difficult fight is by making a donation.

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Abigail Penny

Executive Director Animal Equality UK

Thank you {firstname}!

Thank you so much for signing the petition. Small actions like this add up and change the world!

Farmed fish are often forgotten, but you can lend your voice to speak up for them. Please help by sharing this petition with your friends and social media followers.

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{firstname}, thank you again for your support – it will make a huge difference for animals.

Our dedicated team works tirelessly to expose animal abuse, driving change and pushing for a better future for animals. Make a donation today to help keep our life-saving work going.

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Protect Fish

Scientists confirm that fish feel pain and suffer. Protect these sensitive beings by choosing plant-based alternatives to animal food products. 

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