MyFishCheck: A Model to Assess Fish Welfare in Aquaculture

Abstract

Welfare in animal husbandry includes considerations of biology, ethics, ecology, law and economics. These diverse aspects must be translated into common quantifiable parameters and applicable methods to objectively assess welfare in animals. To assist this process in the field of aquaculture, where such methods are largely missing, we developed a model to assess fish welfare. A network of information was created to link needs, i.e., fundamental requirements for welfare, with parameters, i.e., quantifiable aspects of welfare. From this ontology, 80 parameters that are relevant for welfare, have practicable assessment methods and deliver reliable results were selected and incorporated into a model. The model, named MyFishCheck, allows the evaluation of welfare in five distinct modules: farm management, water quality, fish group behaviour, fish external and fish internal appearance, thereby yielding five individual grades categorising welfare ranging from critical, to poor, to acceptable, and good. To facilitate the use of the model, a software application was written. With its adaptability to different fish species, farming systems, regulations and purposes as well as its user-friendly digital version, MyFishCheck is a next step towards improved fish welfare assessment and provides a basis for ongoing positive developments for the industry, the farmers and the fish.

A Multidisciplinary Approach Evaluating Soybean Meal-Induced Enteritis in Rainbow Trout Oncorhynchus mykiss

“…The increasing intensification of the global aquaculture industry focuses not only on product quality and profitability, but also on the welfare of the farmed fish [1][2][3][4]. Various national, European and global research programmes aimed at assessing and defining the organism's adaptability to withstand physical and psychological challenges during the production process have established welfare-indicator indices [3,5,6] for sustainable farming practices.…”

“…The increasing intensification of the global aquaculture industry focuses not only on product quality and profitability, but also on the welfare of the farmed fish [1][2][3][4]. Various national, European and global research programmes aimed at assessing and defining the organism's adaptability to withstand physical and psychological challenges during the production process have established welfare-indicator indices [3,5,6] for sustainable farming practices. The researched husbandry parameters include water temperature [7][8][9], concentrations of dissolved oxygen [10,11], stocking densities [12][13][14] and tank characteristics, such as background colour or structural enrichments [15,16], as well as the type and quality of feed containing any additives of vegetable origin [17][18][19].…”

Looking beyond the Shoal: Fish Welfare as an Individual Attribute

“…However, as fish behavior has been recognized as an essential indicator of emotion and hence, welfare [ 114 ], more recent research has focused on assessing environmental preferences as part of welfare assessment [ 131 ]. Very recent fish welfare assessment research highlights the need to include behavioral indicators of welfare, with an awareness of the emotional needs of fishes, but still falls short of measuring welfare at the level of the individual [ 132 , 133 ]. There is also an awareness that behavioral indicators need to be species-specific, with a paucity of research to inform such indicators for most species used in aquaculture [ 2 , 21 , 70 ].…”

New indices for the diagnosis of fish welfare and their application to the grass carp ( Ctenopharyngodon idella ) reared in earthen ponds

“…Any stress inflicted on an animal triggers metabolic, physiological or behavioural responses aimed at restoring a new state of equilibrium (Korte et al, 2007). Some researchers believe that aquaculture still lacks scientifically validated and proven methods to assess fish welfare under farmed conditions (Segner et al, 2012;Tschirren et al, 2021). Although some authors have studied and proposed indicators of fish welfare (Martins et al, 2012;Noble et al, 2018;Parma et al, 2020;Pedrazzani et al, 2020;Segner et al, 2012), there According to the authors, the application enables simple and standardized measurement of relevant, feasible and reliable parameters from which the model derives intuitive welfare scores.…”