Abstract
The welfare of farmed fish has attracted attention in recent years, which has resulted in notable changes within the aquaculture industry. However, a lack of communication between stakeholders and opposing ethical views are perceived as barriers to achieving consensus on how to improve farmed fish welfare. To address these issues, we developed an interactive approach that could be used during stakeholder meetings to (1) improve communication between different stakeholder groups, (2) build consensus on priorities for farmed fish welfare and (3) establish mechanisms to address welfare priorities. We then applied this approach during a meeting of stakeholders to identify current and future priorities for farmed fish welfare in the UK. During the meeting in the UK, stakeholders initially identified 32 areas that they felt were in need of development for future improvements in farmed fish welfare. These were further refined via peer review and discussion to the seven most important “priority” areas. Establishing a “better understanding of what good fish welfare is” emerged as the highest priority area for farmed fish welfare. The second highest priority area was “the need for welfare monitoring and documentation systems”, with mortality recording proposed as an example. The other five priority areas were “[improved understanding of] the role of genetic selection in producing fish suited to the farming environment”, “a need for integration and application of behavioural and physiological measures”, “the need for a more liberal regime in Europe for introducing new medicines”, “a need to address the issues of training existing and new workers within the industry”, and “ensuring best practise in aquaculture is followed by individual businesses”. Feedback from attendees, and the meeting outputs, indicated that the approach had been successful in improving communication between stakeholders and in achieving consensus on the priorities for farmed fish welfare. The approach therefore proved highly beneficial for future improvements in fish welfare in the UK.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Appleby MC (1999) Tower of Babel: variation in ethical approaches, concepts of welfare and attitudes to genetic manipulation. Anim Welf 8:381–390
Arlinghaus R, Cooke SJ, Schwab A, Cowx IG (2007) Fish welfare: a challenge to the feelings-based approach, with implications for recreational fishing. Fish Fish 8:57–71
Baron RS, Kerr NL (2003) Group process, group decision, group action. Open University Press, Buckingham
Bunting SW (2008) Horizontally integrated aquaculture development: exploring consensus on constraints and opportunities with a stakeholder Delphi. Aquac Int 16:153–169
Fraser D (1999) Animal ethics and animal welfare science: bridging the two cultures. Appl Anim Behav Sci 65:171–189
Huntingford FA, Adams C, Braithwaite VA, Kadri S, Pottinger TG, Sandøe P, Turnbull JF (2006) Current issues in fish welfare. J Fish Biol 68:332–372
Huntingford FA, Adams C, Braithwaite VA, Kadri S, Pottinger TG, Sandøe P, Turnbull JF (2007) The implications of a feelings-based approach to fish welfare: a reply to Arlinghaus et al. Fish Fish 8:277–280
North BP, Turnbull JF, Ellis T, Porter MJ, Migaud H, Bron J, Bromage NR (2006) The impact of stocking density on the welfare of rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss). Aquaculture 255:466–479
North BP, Ellis T, Bron J, Knowles TG, Turnbull JF (2008) The use of stakeholder focus groups to identify indicators for the on-farm assessment of trout welfare. In: Branson EJ (ed) Fish welfare. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 243–267
Sandøe P, Crisp R, Holtug N (1997) Ethics. In: Appleby MC, Hughes BO (eds) Animal welfare. CABI Publishing, Oxon, pp 3–17
Sandøe P, Christiansen SB, Appleby MC (2003) Farm animal welfare: the interaction of ethical questions and animal welfare science. Anim Welf 12:469–478
Turnbull JF, Bell A, Adams C, Bron J, Huntingford F (2005) Stocking density and welfare of cage farmed Atlantic salmon: application of a multivariate analysis. Aquaculture 243:121–132
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank all participants of the stakeholder meeting, to many to name individually, for their valuable involvement. Further thanks to Mrs Karen Carr for assistance during the meeting, to Dr Mark James for advice during the development of the consensus-building approach and to Prof. Anders Kiessling for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper. This work was funded as part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) project AW1205.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Berrill, I.K., Cooper, T., MacIntyre, C.M. et al. Achieving consensus on current and future priorities for farmed fish welfare: a case study from the UK. Fish Physiol Biochem 38, 219–229 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10695-010-9399-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10695-010-9399-2