The Animal Welfare Act is the primary example of a law that states the standards for which each animal must be treated. Certain requirements must be met, or harsh punishments may be levied to the parties responsible. Over the last decade, much attention has been paid to the treatment of agricultural animals. However, agricultural animals are excluded from protection under the AWA. Despite this, cows and swine have seen some of the more favorable changes in the past decade. The same is not true for another source of animal production: fish raised in farm fisheries. In fact, very little is known to the public of how these fish are treated. The average consumption by an American is roughly 16 pounds per year. Where the consumer is more than willing to eat the fish provided, the public has very little awareness of how these fish are raised.
Domestic fish farms harvest over 114.5 metric tons of fish per year such that raising fish from spawn to maturity is the most profitable practice. There can be tens of thousands of fish per farm spanning the entire life cycle. This technique raises a host of concerns for the ethical treatment of fish. Each step on the life cycle welcomes new issues that ignore any level of respect for the fish through avoiding unnecessary pain and suffering.
Current fishery farm practices endanger the anatomy of the fish. For instance, gills must have ample room to expand and be exposed to clean, moving water to function properly. The fish also rely on a series of sensors along the lateral portion of their body in order to sense its location in the water and what is around it, including predacious fish. Sufficient space for the fins to expand can be hindered when there are too many fish in a small area, leading to atrophy and preventing that fish from being able to move freely. There is a pattern here: to remain profitable, there must be a high concentration of fish in a single tank. Exceeding a healthy population affects each biological need of the fish to remain physically fit.
Beyond a lack of space, fish are exposed to contaminated water and do not get the proper nutrition due to that overcrowding. The concrete tanks do not meet the habitat needs of the fish and can damage parts of those fish like that lateral line, meaning infection may run rampant through a single tank. Overcrowding fish and lack of food increases competition within the tanks, leading to more fighting, causing disease and injuries leading to mass fish death.
Each of these features, taken under the lens of animal welfare, violates the Five Freedoms. The understanding of what an animal needs in order to survive and live a healthy lifestyle is evaluated through the Five Freedoms. These Freedoms include freedom from hunger and thirst, freedom from discomfort, freedom from pain, injury, or disease, freedom to express normal behavior, and freedom from fear and distress. Going through the lifecycle of a fish within these farm fisheries, there are a number of violations to each of the above freedoms. The range of issues include the overcrowding, lack of nutrition, improper housing, and unethical killings of the fish.
Without some level of public awareness, it is unlikely that any of the issues presented will be solved. Developments in animal welfare have greatly improved since the AWA was created. Other laws that provide basic standards must include animals in the agricultural sector. However, fish, which many see as lesser beings, should not be left off the list as they are some of the most susceptible to unethical treatment across farm fisheries in the United States.