Historically, scientists, activists, politicians and industry have all referred to aquatic animal populations as “seafood” and “stocks.” When discussing the use of these extraordinary creatures, we think not of them as individuals, but as animals purely for human consumption, using terms such as “fish stocks,” “stock depletion,” and “seafood traceability.”

ALI’s welfare guide for aquaculture receives support from both animal welfare and ocean conservation groups.

A new study by Becca Franks, Christopher Ewell and Jennifer Jacquet highlights the importance of aquatic animal welfare within the aquaculture industry -- an area that has been historically neglected by government, industry as well as animal welfare activists.

Until now.

A nascent movement for aquatic animal welfare has been growing in the past year, led by the Aquatic Life Institute, which founded the first alliance for aquatic animal welfare and issued the first comprehensive guide for welfare interventions in aquaculture. Since its publication, this guide has been endorsed by 25 (and counting) organizations. 

A group of researchers and members of associations is calling for a ban on the use of live fish as bait in recreational fishing. In addition to the cruelty of this practice, it would pose serious threats to biodiversity through the introduction of exotic species or the spread of viruses.

This year on April 3rd, the world celebrates World Aquatic Animal Day, a day dedicated to showing appreciation and highlighting the significance of aquatic animals. Launched by the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative as part of the Animal Law Clinic and Center for Animal Law Studies, this day is all about raising awareness through law, policy, education and advocacy to meet the immense challenges that aquatic animals face.

Passionate about ocean life, a filmmaker sets out to document the harm that humans do to marine species — and uncovers alarming global corruption.

As an exhilarating month of feedback comes to a close, ALI is in the midst of shifting the spotlight to the release of our illuminating and striking report, “Blue Loss”: Estimating How Many Aquatic Animals are Hidden in the Food System, exposing a startling amount of aquatic animals that are habitually concealed from the public eye in our food system and therefore out of welfare considerations. In this report conducted by ALI’s research team, we have calculated that approximately 1.2 trillion aquatic animals comprise this “Blue Loss” every single year. In other words, between one-third to one-half of all wild-caught fish are ultimately fed to farmed aquatic animals.

We’d like to share a major milestone and victory for farmed aquatic animals! The new Food & Ag benchmark from the World Benchmarking Alliance has updated several indicators on animal welfare using our feedback language.  

Among the most well-known animals in the sea, as well as the foundation for a quarter of all marine life is Coral. Related to Sea Anemone and Sea Jelly, all three species belong to the phylum Cnidaria and are made up of polyps which have stinging cells in their tentacles called nematocysts. It is believed that coral is over 500 million years old, and has survived numerous extinction events, but due to the recent direct impact of humans one fifth of the world’s coral is dead and not coming back.

Last month, I had the opportunity to adopt several aquatic animals from someone moving and unable to take their tanks with them. And so I welcomed a colony of neocaridina shrimps into my home. When picturing shrimps, most of us likely first imagine shrimps inanimate, dead by the dozen on a plate as hors d'oeuvres or dismembered in a bowl of pasta. The term “shrimp,” however, refers to many thousands of species with a broad range of habitats and needs, whose lives and behaviors are both diverse and fascinating. And, I would learn, shrimps can be surprisingly charming when alive and well!

A newer tide among animal advocates has untapped potential: aquatic animal sanctuaries.

Rivers, lakes and wetlands are among the most biodiverse places on earth. They cover less than 1% of the planet’s total surface, yet they’re home to almost a quarter of all vertebrate species – including over half of all the world’s fish species.It’s an extraordinary fact: 51% of all known species of fish live in freshwater - 18,075 species. And more are being discovered all the time. 

A member of the Aquatic Animal Alliance -- Animal Rights Center Japan -- has translated our aquatic animal welfare guide into Japanese, broadening our advocacy reach into a hugely important market: Japan.  

At the end of 2020, we received tremendous news for the Aquatic Life Institute, Aquatic Animal Alliance, and the trillions of individuals on whose behalf we work: Product certifier GLOBALG.A.P., which certifies an estimated two billion aquatic animals each year, made significant welfare updates to their standards in response to our June feedback. This means approximately two billion aquatic animals each year will live improved lives. It is also the first major victory in our coordinated global advocacy effort.

Despite widely held beliefs that fish and other aquatic animals do not feel pain, are unintelligent or not sentient, this is simply not the case. In fact, research confirms the fact that many of these animals are intelligent, sentient, and have other important qualities, yet are among the most widely used and abused beings on the planet. Even within the animal advocacy and animal law movements, these beings have historically received less consideration and attention than other animals. However, the tide is slowly turning. In Part I of this three-part blog series, we share our insights as to why aquatic animals are disregarded and highlight some examples of how we treat them differently.

But year after year, the numbers of returning salmon have been decreasing. And in the last few years, the decline has been in freefall. In Scotland, it is estimated that less than 5 percent of salmon return to their rivers, compared with 20 percent 50 years ago. And it is a problem across the range of the Atlantic salmon, from the United States to Russia.

A new report, Catching Up, published by Eurogroup for Animals highlights the various hazards faced by wild-caught fish and proposes strategies to reduce unnecessary suffering. Importantly, it explains that although approximately one trillion fish are captured each year and scientific evidence shows that they are sentient beings, there is little public awareness about fish welfare globally compared with that for land animals. 

Researchers at the University of Trento in Italy conducted a study to find out if a particular species of fish, the redtail splitfin, saw the Ebbinghaus illusion in the same way that we do. 

Aquatic animals are some of the most mistreated and misunderstood animals on earth. Until recently, virtually no attention was paid to the welfare of aquatic animals. ALI is working to change this, both in terms of public perceptions of fish sentience as well as industry standards for how fish are treated. 

In 2024, nearly two million salmon will be produced each year on an intensive aquaculture farm in Pas-de-Calais. Accidents in such structures have already caused the death of several hundred thousand fish. Such breeding - and their corollary, an excessively high density of animals - raise important ethical questions.