Salmo salar is a salmonid from both coasts of the northern Atlantic, migrating into boardering rivers to spawn. It is the most frequently farmed fish in Europe which represents 50% of the worldwide S. salar production. Upbringing in fresh water, predominantly in flow-through tanks, lasts for 1-1.5 years after which smoltification prepares the individuals for life in seawater; on-growing in sea cages covers 50-70% of the life cycle. Where the culture site does not provide suitable conditions for sea transfer, individuals are grown out in land-based freshwater RAS to harvestable size. Individuals are slaughtered before reaching maturity. Adults destined to become broodstock are transferred back to freshwater about 2 months before spawning. The underlying migration habit is one of the factors very hard to accommodate in captivity, as it is unclear whether it is sufficient to provide the species with the conditions of the respective life stages or whether it needs to experience the transition. Other factors responsible for the low FishEthoScore are substrate needs as well as high levels of aggression, stress, and deformations under farming conditions. Avoiding manipulation to induce spawning, providing substrate, and applying the high-standard slaughter methods are ways towards improving welfare for S. salar in captivity.
For details see: WelfareCheck | farm (latest major release: 2023-05-11)In 2022, our colleagues from FishEthoGroup were invited to write a report for the Aquaculture Advisory Council of the European Commission on the topic of "Using ethology to improve farmed fish welfare and production". This report was recently published anew with an updated appendix. For this report, FishEthoGroup collaborated with the fair-fish database to give a summary of the situation of 5 of the most frequently farmed species in Europe (Sparus aurata, Dicentrarchus labrax, Oncorhynchus mykiss, Salmo salar, Cyprinus carpio). We from the fair-fish database used the opportunity to update these 5 profiles (of which you have read in this News section in the past months). Among them was that of Salmo salar, the Atlantic salmon, which was enriched with a plethora of papers and was transferred to our latest more transparent and user-friendly formatting scheme. Thanks to the update, we could get rid of a couple of question marks in the welfare assessment, but the new findings only manifested what was hinted at before: except at slaughter, Salmo salar cannot experience good welfare in captivity even under the best possible conditions.
