ISSUE FOCUS 38 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE August 2025 We also work with certification bodies, such as the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), to embed animal welfare into updated farm standards. Through our annual Aquatic Animal Welfare Benchmark, we track and compare how certifiers perform on key issues like water quality, stocking density, environmental enrichment, feed composition, and stunning/slaughter. This transparency enables buyers, retailers, and investors to make informed decisions and gives producers a roadmap for improvement. By influencing certification language and requirements, we’re changing the criteria in which sustainability is judged, ensuring that animal welfare is an essential, rather than optional, dimension of certified sustainable seafood production. CONCLUSION: A SYSTEM WORTH CHANGING Improving welfare reduces suffering for billions of sentient animals, builds resilience against disease and disruption, and aligns aquaculture with broader Sustainable Development Goals. Systemic reform not only requires advocating for better practices, but we must also build the tools, relationships, and standards that make those practices possible. Through influencing feed procurement guidelines, certification standards, or global policy platforms, we’re working to reshape how the world thinks about seafood sustainability and the animals themselves. The transition to welfare-inclusive aquaculture is already underway, but to scale, it requires aligned action across certifiers, feed manufacturers, producers, retailers, and policymakers. ALI supports this shift by producing peer-reviewed research, advising standard revisions, and helping companies turn values into measurable practices. References 1Gonzalez, T. J. (2025). Harmonizing Animal Health and Welfare in Modern Aquaculture: Innovative Practices for a Sustainable Seafood Industry. Fishes, 10(4), 156. https://doi.org/10.3390/fishes10040156 2Gonzalez TJ (2023) ‘Positive’ animal welfare in aquaculture as a cardinal principle for sustainable development. Front. Anim. Sci. 4:1206035. doi: 10.3389/fanim.2023.1206035 Aquaculture Certification Schemes Benchmark: Aquatic Animal Welfare (Edition 3) CRITERIA EVALUATED SUB-CRITERIA Water Quality Directly impacts animal survival, health, stress levels, and overall well-being. Enhances the quality of life for animals in captive, controlled environments. Reduces the number of animals being used within the seafood system (wild-caught fish required for aquaculture feed). Ensures that animals are rendered unconscious quickly and maintained in that state until death, minimizing suffering and promoting ethical handling practices. Prevents highly intelligent and sentient animals from enduring significant industrialized suffering. Avoids potential ecological and welfare concerns associated with insect farming. Prevents unnecessary pain and distress, promoting better welfare and humane treatment of the animals. Determines space for opportunities to engage in natural behaviors, reducing stress and supporting both animal health and welfare. • Inclusion • Thresholds • Specificity • Effective Management • Inclusion • Evidence-based • Explicit • Behavioral • Inclusion • Commitment • Stimulus (physical) • Stimulus (psychological) • Inclusion • Limits • Alternatives • Traceable • Inclusion • Humane • Monitoring • Efficiency • Presence/Absence • Presence/Absence • Presence/Absence Stocking Density and Space Requirements Environmental Enrichment Feed Composition Stunning and Slaughter Cephalopod Farming Prohibition Insect Prohibition in Aquafeed Eyestalk Ablation Prohibition in Shrimp Farming RELEVANCE TOP RANKED
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