The Truth About Scottish Salmon Farming

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