Co-founder of Shrimp Welfare Project, which aims to reduce the suffering of billions of farmed shrimps
Aaron Boddyđ¸
Karma: 2,081
Have you heard of High Impact Engineers?
They recently relaunched and have their own Forumâthe Impact Forgeâwhich could be a good place to crosspost this question :)
Thanks for the kind words, Johannes!
Thatâs a great question, and youâre exactly right that our âincreasing confidenceâ is focused on answering questions like that.
One of the reasons we started the Humane Slaughter Initiative was to deploy stunners in different regions and contexts in order to remove barriers to uptake. The industry was telling us that humane slaughter wasnât possible in this or that context for one reason or another. We thought it made sense to try it out and understand the barriers in each context better.
Weâre still very much in this learning phase, and due to the variety of contexts weâve deployed stunners in, there isnât really a âgiven stunnerââeffectiveness varies significantly by context, equipment type, species, and operational practices. Additionally, weâre exploring New Solutions & Protocols, which further complicates providing a single answer.
What I can say is that:
Weâve seen successful implementation in multiple contexts, but with notable variation
Our monitoring suggests that proper training and ongoing support are critical factors
This variation is exactly why weâre prioritising better M&E systems and implementation support
Iâm hesitant to give a specific confidence curve right now because (1) it would likely be context-dependent rather than universal, and (2) improving this is an active focus area for us, so any number I give today could anchor peopleâs thinking even as we make progress.
Itâs a goal of ours to publish more research and data as we collect over the next 12 months. This will help donors and industry partners better understand effectiveness across different contexts. So, stay tuned for those developments in the coming year :)
Shrimp Welfare ProÂjectâs path to helping 100 billion shrimps per year
EA LiverÂpool meetup: JanÂuary 2026
EA LiverÂpool meetup: DeÂcemÂber 2025
EA LiverÂpool meetup: NovemÂber 2025
The imÂpacts of AI on anÂiÂmal advocacy
The FuÂture of AnÂiÂmal WelÂlbeÂing in 2050
To build on Michaelâs pointâAIM has been recommending âFish Welfare Initiative in a new countryâ since at least 2023. And another fish welfare charity in Europe can be thought of as taking Shrimp Welfare Projectâs model and applying it to fishes.
For (what became) Scale Welfare, my understanding is that many potential co-founder pairings fell apart due to the time needed in country (and I would also guess that the Program attracts people who want to start something new, and founding a similar project isnât as exciting as something brand new).
I also think a main reason AIM probably arenât recommending more is because of their modest prioritization value, and wanting to recommend charities that maximise impact over a range of worldviews. I imagine there probably could be a world where AIM exclusively incubated aquatic animal welfare projects, but they (understandably) have epistemic uncertainty about this.
(Thereâs also probably an argument that the ecosystem can only really accommodate 1-2 new projects per year, and not a flood of new projects all at once).
Then, one day, his wife, a social worker whoâd spent her career supporting refugees
Oh so youâre helping refugees?
The curÂrent marÂket price for anÂiÂmal welfare is zero
I think Heather Browning has an upcoming book project about Interspecies Welfare Comparisonsâhereâs an example of her published work on the topic
Welfare tech should be deÂvelÂoped by welfare people
AnÂiÂmal adÂvoÂcates are too reÂlucÂtant to sit at the inÂdusÂtryâs table
GIFTing breeder anÂiÂmals is a huÂmanÂiÂtarÂian intervention
Thanks Vasco :)
Precision WelfareâI appreciate your feedback here. Iâve had some positive responses from industry folks on this term, but Iâm not locked into the specific language around this just yetâdo you have any thoughts on other ways to frame this idea?
CertifiersâThatâs true. I guess the wider point I wanted to make here is that I think people are locked into a particular view of what certification looks likeâand I think there is a lot of scope for ways to reimagine certification that is more innovative and responsive.
False creditsâYep good point. I think requiring more monitoring on farms to verify that producers arenât falsifying credit generation would be a good thing. This is actually one of the reasons why weâre interested in Precision Aquaculture technology hereâhaving automated sensors that could detect both pre-stunning movement and effective stunning outcomes would create a more robust verification system than relying solely on periodic inspections or self-reporting.
Per shrimp /â per kgâProducers sometimes do âpartial harvestsâ throughout a crop (to recoup losses in case of a future disease outbreak, or to reduce biomass so that the remaining shrimps can grow larger without straining the pondâs carrying capacity, etc.). So my assumption (if we paid on a per shrimp basis) would be that it would incentivise farmers to stock higher at the beginningâthen do a partial harvest as soon as feasible to generate creditsâthen continue to grow the remaining shrimps until the full harvest.
Also, I think meeting the industry âwhere theyâre atâ is often usefulâif the industry already trades on a per kg basis, it makes it much easier to integrate credits into this system if we also use per kg.
Hi Angelina, Austin, and Vasco :)
Apologies for all the confusion hereâin terms of the idea Iâm presenting in the post I think Vasco has done a really great job of summarising the idea above.
But I think the conversation above has helped me recognise a distinction that I donât think Iâd articulated particularly well in my post, which is that I see a difference between the application of credits for contexts like shrimp stunning, and the wider application of credits for animal welfare more broadly:
As a transition tool (as in shrimp stunning credits) - In the case of offsetting âbadâ practices, credits arenât intended to be very valuable, just a way to unblock logistical issues of transitioning a supply chain. Ultimately we want a situation where no-one is buying stunning credits because theyâve all directly transitioned their supply chains. (Again, I think Vasco actually does a great job of outlining my sense of how this would work without increasing shrimp production in his comment below).
As a tool to put a price on positive welfare (similar to Paul Christianoâs Demand Offsetting proposalâthanks @Austin! I hadnât read this article before) - In cases of trying to optimise for âgoodâ practices (where an improvement could lead to net positive lives for farmed animals), I wanted to paint a picture of a world where credits could be used to create lasting mechanisms that financially incentivise these welfare improvements.
Also, Iâve just realised that Iâve referenced @Vasco Grilođ¸âs comments a few times in this reply to help clarify my thinkingâjust wanted to say that I really appreciate your help in articulating the points I wanted to make!
Thanks Pete :)
Good question! The margin on the merch is pretty slim (around 20% per item, depending on what you get), we mainly use it as an awareness tool rather than a major fundraising channel.
So if you wanted to distribute t-shirts/âstickers to friends, then I agree it probably makes more sense to get a bunch made up yourself rather than buy them through our store.
Thanks Vasco :)
And good spot on the repeat! Iâve edited that out now
Personally, I agree that pursuing research into soil animal welfare would likely be valuable. In general, Iâm extremely impressed by how much salience you have brought to this issue over this past year. My intuitions around how to think about these animals currently seem to generally align with Bob Fischerâs thoughts.
Even if soil animals become the most cost effective use of marginal dollars, I still think we need opportunities in the animal space with high absorbency. I donât think that this research could absorb millions in the way other animal orgs could. I still think we need more aquatic animal projects and that the animal movement needs to be thought about as an ecosystem, rather than a single org.