“Fish are the most forgotten in animal protection movements,” says Miriam Martínez, head of the fish section at the Animal Welfare Observatory (OBA). “However, if we look at the number of individuals (rather than measuring by tons), fish are the animals that are produced in the greatest quantity: hundreds of billions are slaughtered each year worldwide.”
The organization to which Martínez belongs, the OBA, leads the first campaign in Spain on the welfare of fish in aquaculture (cultivation of species in the aquatic environment), asking large fish farms to incorporate stunning prior to slaughter with the in order to prevent the fish from suffering at the time of death. This campaign began with a complaint from this NGO against the company Piszolla SLU for alleged irregularities in animal welfare.
Martínez explains that in Spain law 32/2007 for the care of animals in their exploitation, transport, experimentation and slaughter requires stunning prior to slaughter for all vertebrate production animals, which includes fish. However, there is still no specific regulation on how this stunning should be carried out to guarantee the fish’s unconsciousness. “Historically, it was thought that by putting fish in ice they were already being stunned, but science has already shown that this is not the case,” declares the expert for La Vanguardia.
Ice slaughter is a common practice in Spanish fish farms that omits prior stunning, according to the Animal Welfare Observatory. This technique consists of submerging live fish in a mixture of ice and water (or in ice directly), causing the animals to die from hypothermia or asphyxiation.
The OBA specifies that this method of sacrifice is discouraged by the scientific community and the European Union “due to the unnecessary suffering it entails for these animals”, since in some species adapted to the cold, this can prolong death for more than an hour. Likewise, the organization alleges that already in 2009, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) declared ice asphyxiation as one of the worst methods in terms of animal welfare and recommended selecting for each species “the most appropriate stunning and killing methods.” with respect to animal welfare.”
For his part, Javier Ojeda, manager of the Aquaculture Business Association of Spain (Apromar), explains to this newspaper that slaughter is one of the most critical phases in the well-being of the fish. However, changes in stunning and slaughter methods in aquaculture are complex and vary greatly between species, individual sizes and production systems.
“In most cases, ad-hoc solutions must be created, which involves technological research and development, testing, certifications and a period of adaptation and transformation that can be more or less long, depending on many factors. All this, in addition, must be done without putting at risk the health and safety of the workers, the quality and food safety of the fish, and the environmental and natural balance of the environment,” says Ojeda and adds that, although Apromar published a wellness guide animal two years ago, “it is perfectly logical and reasonable that this recommendation is still in the process of being implemented in many facilities.”
“But in any case, Spanish aquaculture producers comply with the standards required at the time of slaughter,” says Ojeda, who clarifies that in Spain various methods of stunning and slaughter are used, ranging from immersion of the fish in water with ice to head percussion or electronarcosis, but that all these techniques are recognized as valid by the European Union and the World Organization for Animal Health.
However, the Apromar manager agrees that immersion in ice water produces “precarious well-being,” but argues that it is accepted as adequate because when done correctly, “it produces sufficient stunning and because today there is no alternative.” “better when working outside of a laboratory.”
Ojeda defends that, in any case, the organization works actively in the search for innovative technical solutions that optimize slaughter procedures and that the commitment of the Spanish aquaculture sector to the well-being of the fish “is manifest and evident”, since “they are “the production companies themselves, aware of their transcendental role for food, are driving the entire sector to increasingly demanding standards.”
At the request of the Animal Welfare Observatory, several fish farms in Spain have already publicly committed to replacing their slaughter systems with “more humane” electrical stunning systems, according to this organization. However, OBA alleges that the largest trout producer in Spain, Piszolla SLU, has not yet done so; and for this reason, it has started its campaign with an administrative complaint against this company for an alleged very serious violation in its slaughter practices by using methods that do not correspond to scientific recommendations to avoid suffering.
“We know that this particular company does not stun fish and it seems unheard of to us because they have the capacity to do so and the business group to which they belong is already implementing stunning in France,” argues Martínez, adding: “What we ask is that they do a public commitment that they will incorporate stunning on all farms. It is a company with many possibilities and we believe that they need this push to get their act together and for the rest to follow.”