Executive summary: Despite recent progress, significant gaps remain in aquatic animal welfare, and more organizations with diverse approaches are needed to address species-specific, regional, and intervention-based challenges effectively.
Key points:
Current efforts are insufficient – While aquatic animal welfare has gained attention, existing initiatives only address a small portion of the issue, especially for species like shrimp and invertebrates.
Diversity in species, regions, and interventions – The complexity of aquatic animal welfare requires species-specific and region-specific solutions, as well as a variety of intervention types, such as policy advocacy, research, and direct action.
Need for innovation and redundancy – A single organization per species or intervention is not enough; multiple groups working on overlapping issues can drive competition, collaboration, and cross-validation, similar to the success of the chicken welfare movement.
Challenges include funding and awareness – Limited funding, a lack of public and stakeholder awareness, and hesitancy to enter seemingly ‘covered’ areas hinder progress in aquatic animal welfare.
Recommendations for expansion – More charities should focus on underrepresented species, adapt successful models to different countries, explore diverse intervention strategies, and embrace non-territoriality in welfare work.
Call to action – The authors urge more individuals and organizations to enter the aquatic animal welfare space, fostering a more robust, resilient, and effective ecosystem of interventions.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Despite recent progress, significant gaps remain in aquatic animal welfare, and more organizations with diverse approaches are needed to address species-specific, regional, and intervention-based challenges effectively.
Key points:
Current efforts are insufficient – While aquatic animal welfare has gained attention, existing initiatives only address a small portion of the issue, especially for species like shrimp and invertebrates.
Diversity in species, regions, and interventions – The complexity of aquatic animal welfare requires species-specific and region-specific solutions, as well as a variety of intervention types, such as policy advocacy, research, and direct action.
Need for innovation and redundancy – A single organization per species or intervention is not enough; multiple groups working on overlapping issues can drive competition, collaboration, and cross-validation, similar to the success of the chicken welfare movement.
Challenges include funding and awareness – Limited funding, a lack of public and stakeholder awareness, and hesitancy to enter seemingly ‘covered’ areas hinder progress in aquatic animal welfare.
Recommendations for expansion – More charities should focus on underrepresented species, adapt successful models to different countries, explore diverse intervention strategies, and embrace non-territoriality in welfare work.
Call to action – The authors urge more individuals and organizations to enter the aquatic animal welfare space, fostering a more robust, resilient, and effective ecosystem of interventions.
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.