The shrimp welfare landscape (1/2)
Current progress insights from the field's top advocates
Author: Elisa Autric
In collaboration with: Dr. Krzysztof Wojtas, Tessa Gonzalez, Dr. Ben Sturgeon, Hannah McKay
At any given moment, approximately 230 billion shrimp are living on farms worldwide—representing the largest population of any farmed animal species globally, surpassing chickens, fish, and even insects.
Systematic advocacy efforts for shrimp welfare have been developing over the past few years, recently gaining significant mainstream momentum through media coverage on The Daily Show, inspired by Bentham’s Bulldog’s takes. A rapidly expanding coalition of researchers, welfare scientists, and advocacy organizations is now driving substantial progress across multiple intervention areas.
On August 26, we hosted "Making progress for shrimp welfare,” a comprehensive webinar examining current developments in the movement. The panel featured leading experts Dr. Krzysztof Wojtas (Chief Programmes Officer, Shrimp Welfare Project), Dr. Ben Sturgeon (Chief Executive Officer, Crustacean Compassion), and Tessa Gonzalez (Head of Research, Aquatic Life Institute), alongside Hannah McKay (Rethink Priorities' Research Analyst and shrimp welfare specialist).
This post contextualizes and summarizes the contents of the panelists’ presentations. An upcoming post will summarize the answers given by speakers during the Q&A session of the webinar.
Farmed shrimp 101
The scientific evidence is increasingly supporting the sentience and capacity for suffering of shrimp. Comprehensive reviews by researchers have concluded that there is substantial evidence indicating that decapods (including shrimp) are likely sentient. This scientific consensus has gained regulatory recognition, with the UK legally acknowledging decapod crustaceans, including shrimp, as sentient beings under its Animal Welfare Act.
The numbers around shrimp farming can be hard to grasp. Approximately 440 billion farmed shrimp are slaughtered annually. This does not even account for half of all farmed shrimp that die from disease, poor water quality, and other welfare threats before reaching market weight.
Our forecasts indicate continued rapid expansion of this already massive sector. Annual slaughter numbers could reach nearly 762 billion shrimp by 2033—representing a 73% increase over current levels. This growth trajectory reflects increasing global demand for shrimp products and the industry's shift toward more intensive farming systems.
A complex on-farm welfare picture
Farmed shrimp face widespread welfare concerns across their entire life cycle. Rethink Priorities (RP) researchers identified at least 10 types of welfare threats faced by farmed shrimp throughout their lives. Investigating the prevalence, severity, and duration of these threats, we found that the average farmed shrimp experiences approximately 157 hours of severe pain during production, and that the highest-ranking welfare threats include chronic issues such as high stocking density, poor water quality, and low dissolved oxygen.
Current industry slaughter practices vary widely, with many operations lacking any stunning systems whatsoever. Standard methods include ice slurry, air suffocation, and live processing—practices that can result in prolonged suffering. Shrimp Welfare Project's field observations revealed that some facilities using this method operate at ineffective temperatures as high as 17°C, providing no welfare benefit.
Electrical stunning has emerged as the current leading humane alternative, offering more reliable and immediate unconsciousness regardless of ambient temperature conditions. However, research into optimal electrical stunning protocols for shrimp remains ongoing, with studies continually refining parameters for different species and farming contexts. The significant infrastructure gaps across the industry mean that implementing any stunning system—whether electrical or thermal—represents a substantial improvement over current widespread practices of unstunned slaughter.
Production systems themselves vary considerably, from extensive low-density operations to highly intensive farming systems. Each approach presents distinct welfare challenges related to stocking density, water quality management, disease prevention, and environmental controls, requiring tailored welfare solutions.
A global challenge
Farm conditions can also vary dramatically by geography, and perhaps the biggest challenge facing shrimp welfare advocates is the global nature of the industry, for both production (top producer countries include China, Ecuador, Vietnam, India, and Indonesia) and consumption (China, the US, Japan, Spain, and France are major importers).
The movement's current success in the UK and the Netherlands demonstrates that progress is possible, but scaling globally will require building local partnerships and adapting approaches to different cultural and economic contexts.
Shrimp welfare progress so far
The webinar we recently ran featured guest speakers from three organizations working on different aspects of the issue, each taking a complementary approach:
Farm partnerships and corporate engagement
Shrimp Welfare Project takes a direct intervention approach, providing farmers with electrical stunning equipment free of charge, along with complete training and implementation support. This strategy facilitates the adoption of humane slaughter practices by farmers, eliminating financial and logistical barriers. The organization also works simultaneously with suppliers and retailers—their success with producers creates proof points that make retailers more willing to commit to sourcing policies.
Globally, they have agreements with 20 major producers representing about 10% of global production, including some of the world's largest shrimp producers. This positively affects an estimated 4 billion shrimp annually.
Beyond slaughter methods, Shrimp Welfare Project also secures commitments to source only ablation-free shrimp. Eyestalk ablation involves removing or crushing one or both eyestalks of female breeding shrimp to accelerate sexual maturation and increase egg production—a standard industry practice that causes significant pain and stress while impairing natural behaviors. Eliminating this procedure represents a major welfare improvement for breeding populations.
Nine major retailers have committed to sourcing only ablation-free and electrically stunned shrimp, and when fully implemented, these commitments will cover 80% of all shrimp sold in the UK. The organization is also engaging in advanced discussions in several other major importing markets, beyond the UK and the Netherlands.
Corporate Pressure Through Transparency
Crustacean Compassion (CC) has pioneered a public ranking system called “The Snapshot” that evaluates seafood companies on their decapod welfare policies across the entire "sea to plate journey"—from catching methods and handling to transport, storage, and slaughter. They currently assess 30 major UK companies across four categories: management commitments, policies and procedures, governance, and innovation and leadership, covering 14 major welfare actions. The system creates competitive pressure by publicly tiering companies, from best performers like Marks & Spencer and Youngs Seafood in tier one, down to poor performers in tier five, who require significant improvement.
This transparency influences not just consumers but also retailers and their supply chain, as well as legislators and investors, by demonstrating where the industry is prepared to make changes and what changes are needed. For example, CC has secured policy commitments from the largest UK retailers to end live sales, seeing downstreamed suppliers and processors adopting high-welfare activities. Over the past few years, they've seen overall improvements of approximately 70% across the 30 major UK companies that handle 90% of decapod imports and capture, resulting in an estimated 3.1-4.1 billion animals experiencing improved welfare (intensity and duration) over the three years of operation.
Beyond the Snapshot program, CC adopts multiple complementary strategies, including:
Corporate engagement support (Crustacean Welfare Industry Hub)
Consumer behavioral change programs
Research findings (The Sea to Plate Welfare Journey; High Welfare Transport in Europe - Economics and Sustainability; Food Science and Welfare; Pain Tracking Decapods).
Government lobbying and advocacy (Legislation vs Regulation publications). In this area, they’ve notably received commitments from the UK government animal welfare teams (Defra) to enforce killing standards that end boiling alive practices, include decapod welfare expectations in the UK Government review of the Animal Welfare Act, and increase research commitments to tackle decapod mutilations.
Standards and Certification
Aquatic Life Institute (ALI) takes a systems-change approach, working to transform the very standards that govern how aquatic animals live in captivity. Their framework focuses on five foundational welfare pillars: water quality, space requirements and stocking density, feed composition, environmental enrichment, as well as stunning and slaughter. By targeting certifiers that regulate farming practices for billions of aquatic animals worldwide, ALI ensures that reforms can cascade across entire supply chains rather than being limited to isolated farms or companies. Through their annual aquaculture certification benchmark, ALI systematically evaluates farming standards and their welfare requirements. These assessments are then used to push major, global certification bodies like GLOBALG.A.P., Best Aquaculture Practices (BAP), and the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) to incorporate stronger welfare protections.
Over the last five years, ALI has engaged ASC in benchmark evaluations, open consultation, and technical working groups, directly influencing the design of shrimp welfare certification standards. ALI’s persistent, evidence-driven advocacy has yielded concrete results: six out of nine major aquaculture certification schemes that were evaluated in 2024 now prohibit eyestalk ablation, and several have begun introducing shrimp-specific welfare modules.
Beyond certification, ALI’s efforts also reinforce and validate individual corporate commitments. For instance, the UK retailer Co-op now sources 100% ablation-free shrimp and has committed to implementing electrical stunning by 2027. ALI provided expert guidance, research, and industry insights that supported Co-op’s decision-making and improvements for the 23 million shrimp sold annually within their supply chain.
By embedding welfare requirements into widely recognized certification schemes, ALI builds the infrastructure for global scalability. As retailers and buyers increasingly demand certified products, the ripple effects extend across producing regions worldwide, laying the groundwork for shrimp welfare to become a non-negotiable expectation rather than a niche concern.
And more: While diverse, these approaches do not encompass the full range of advocacy efforts for shrimp welfare. Many other organizations work on this topic and have explored other tactics, as well. For example, the International Council for Animal Welfare (ICAW) recently ran (and won) several campaigns targeting UK retailers, urging them to eliminate the most cruel industry practices in their supply chains. You can find a more comprehensive overview of efforts to tackle shrimp welfare (at the time) in this report by RP researchers.
What next?
Early successes in corporate commitments on slaughter methods and eyestalk ablation in the Netherlands and the UK have proven that progress is possible.
During the webinar, the three guest organizations shared their intention to keep pushing for further corporate progress:
Corporate engagement expansion: Aquatic Life Institute is focusing on supporting more corporate commitments around eyestalk ablation and electrical stunning while capitalizing on heightened industry interest that creates windows of opportunity for progressive policy adoption. They plan on leveraging their 150+ organization Aquatic Animal Alliance network to inform regional advocacy strategies, recognizing that different circumstances require different solutions across global markets. ALI’s broader vision involves building a feedback loop where research informs standards, standards reshape supply chains, and industry shifts influence public awareness and policy to redefine responsible aquaculture.
Optimizing existing strategies: Shrimp Welfare Project aims to continue its successful strategy of providing free stunners to farmers while significantly expanding research investments to optimize protocols and develop better, cheaper, context-adapted stunning equipment. Currently, Shrimp Welfare Project is actively seeking new manufacturers to enter the stunning equipment space and working on effective implementation across diverse farm types, adapting to different geographic conditions and farming systems.
These organizations also wish to expand the range of changes they advocate for:
Geographically: Beyond their current UK and Netherlands success, Shrimp Welfare Project is having advanced discussions with retailers in several other major markets. Crustacean Compassion plans to expand its Snapshot evaluation system beyond the current 30 UK companies to encompass European and global scales.
In terms of asks: Long-term, Shrimp Welfare Project wants to explore innovative approaches like shrimp stunning credits (similar to Global Food Partners' cage-free credits), precision welfare technologies, and even shrimp breeding interventions, leveraging the industry trust they've built to execute other technological interventions that address both acute and chronic welfare indicators. Relatedly, Rethink Priorities’ research agenda for the next few months includes research on possible corporate welfare asks that address chronic welfare risks.
Crustacean Compassion expects to update the review areas in their Snapshot to further high-welfare expectations as time passes. They are also leading enforcement calls for decapods within current UK legislation, addressing transport and storage, killing, and animals used for research purposes. They are further working with the UK government in its road map review of the Animal Welfare Act.
In terms of targets, Crustacean Compassion looks to broaden its corporate impact by engaging new areas affecting decapod welfare that it hadn’t previously looked at, such as food outlets (e.g., restaurants, fishmongers). They also continue to aim beyond the corporate sphere, intending to utilize the demonstrated success and quantified evidence from their current work to engage consumers in the flexitarian movement, as well as to advocate for further legislative change.
Take a deeper dive into the shrimp world
To learn more about shrimp welfare as a cause area, you can:
Look out for our upcoming Q&A post addressing common questions about shrimp welfare.
Read our foundational reports on the topic, particularly our Strategies for helping farmed shrimp report.
As noted during the webinar, you might also consider:
Applying for funding to conduct shrimp welfare interventions. Notably, the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund is seeking applications on this topic.
Donating to shrimp welfare efforts. Our upcoming shrimp welfare landscape Q&A post will feature an update from each organization on their funding needs.
We’d also like to take this opportunity to flag that the Welfare Footprint Project is hiring for a Shrimp Welfare Researcher (apply by tonight)!
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to Dr. Krzysztof Wojtas, Dr. Ben Sturgeon, Tessa Gonzalez, and Hannah McKay for sharing their expertise in the webinar and for reviewing this post. Thank you to Urszula Zarosa for feedback, and to Shane Coburn for copyediting.
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