Emerging indicators of fish welfare in aquaculture

By M. Barreto, Sonia Rey Planellas, Yifei Yang, C. Phillips, Kris Descovich. Reviews in Aquaculture, 2021

140 citations recorded by the source corpus.

13 As aquaculture continues to grow and intensify, there is increasing public concern over the 14 welfare of farmed fish. Stress and production-related pathologies and repressed growth are 15 examples of the challenges facing aquaculture, and their impacts could be minimised by 16 effective identification of the early signs of impaired welfare. Many welfare monitoring 17 methods have been recommended, however, continuous and reliable welfare monitoring in 18 aquaculture is not yet widespread and commonplace. The aim of this scoping review was to 19 present an overview of the most recent developments in fish welfare assessments with a 20 specific focus on practical translation to the aquaculture industry. A keyword-based search 21 was undertaken to identify peer-reviewed papers published between 2014-2020 in which a 22 novel method with the potential to be used for the assessment of fish welfare in 23 aquaculture was introduced. The results were sorted into two categories: non-invasive and 24 invasive methods. All methods were assessed for their advantages and disadvantages, 25 potential applicability to aquaculture. Invasive methods were also ranked on their degree of 26 impact. It is concluded that increased interest into fish welfare, in combination with more 27 intelligent modern technology, has resulted in the development of newer and more refined 28 alternatives to traditional methods of welfare assessment such as behaviour monitoring by 29 2D cameras and plasma cortisol evaluation. Although, in many cases, more research is 30 needed before these methods are suitable for widespread industry use, studies that focus 31 on increasing the precision, automation and practical applicability of these methods are a 32 promising avenue for future research

Subfields: Immunology, Nature and Landscape Conservation, Water Science and Technology

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