The Use of Stakeholder Focus Groups to Identify Indicators for the On‐Farm Assessment of Trout Welfare

North, Ben; Ellis, Tim; Bron, James E.; Knowles, Toby G; Turnbull, James

doi:10.1002/9780470697610.ch15

Cited by 13 publications

(11 citation statements)

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“…To achieve the ultimate aim of improving farm animal welfare, it is recognised that robust indicators are needed to objectively quantify welfare status (North et al 2008;Berrill et al 2010). Surveillance of such indicators would enable detection of trends over time, identification of sectors (or production areas) where action is needed, and allow individual farms to compare performance to the wider industry (Defra 2006).…”

Section: Do Dying Fish Suffer?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mortality and fish welfare

Ellis

Berrill

Lines

et al. 2011

Fish Physiol Biochem

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Mortality has received insufficient attention as a fish welfare topic. Here, we aim to prompt fish farming stakeholders to discuss fish mortalities in relation to welfare. Mortality in farmed fish populations is due to a variety of biotic and abiotic causes, although it is often difficult to differentiate between underlying and immediate causes of mortality. Most mortality appears to occur during episodes associated with disease outbreaks and critical periods (in development or production). Most causes of mortality can be assumed to be associated with suffering prior to death. As mortality rates in farmed fish populations are suspected to rank amongst the highest in commonly farmed vertebrate species, mortality should be a principal fish welfare issue. Long-term mortality rates can be used as a retrospective welfare performance indicator and short-term mortality rates as an operational welfare indicator. Scrutiny of mortality records and determining causes of death will enable action to be taken to avoid further preventable mortality. The welfare performance of fish farms should only be judged on levels of predictable and preventable mortality. Fish farmers will already be monitoring mortality due to commercial and legal requirements. As profitability in fish farming is directly linked to survival, confronting mortality should ultimately benefit both fish and farmers.

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Section: Do Dying Fish Suffer?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mortality and fish welfare

Ellis

Berrill

Lines

et al. 2011

Fish Physiol Biochem

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“…However, Appleby (1999) discussed possibilities for improving dialogue between those with different ethical views, suggesting that (1) there is already some overlap in opinions, (2) people should recognise their own and others' viewpoints, (3) people should identify principles they have in common and (4) they should take practical steps to improve communication. Previously, ''focus groups'' involving different farmed fish welfare stakeholder groups established that there is already some consensus between stakeholders on how improvements in welfare can be achieved for farmed fish (North et al 2008). In light of this (and the suggestions made by Appleby 1999), we developed an approach which aimed to build consensus amongst stakeholders involved in farmed fish welfare, although it is envisaged that the approach might also be suitable for use in other industries.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Arlinghaus et al 2007;Huntingford et al 2007;North et al 2008; see Diseases of Aquatic Organisms Special Issue 2007: Welfare of Aquatic Organisms, http:// www.int-res.com/abstracts/dao/v75/n2/). However, in order to better understand the welfare of farmed fish, one must have an appreciation of how changes in welfare can be measured and also how to weigh those changes against human interest (Huntingford et al 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…farmers, fish veterinarians, governmental and non-governmental organisations, research funding bodies, consumers, retailers, and ethicists) other than researchers have a role to play in safeguarding the welfare of farmed fish (North et al 2008). However, achieving consensus between stakeholders on many aspects of farmed fish welfare and, more specifically, how it can be improved can be difficult: stakeholders have their own ways of defining and assessing welfare and have differing ethical stances.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Achieving consensus on current and future priorities for farmed fish welfare: a case study from the UK

Berrill

Cooper²,

MacIntyre

et al. 2010

Fish Physiol Biochem

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The welfare of farmed fish has attracted attention in recent years, which has resulted in notable changes within the aquaculture industry. However, a lack of communication between stakeholders and opposing ethical views are perceived as barriers to achieving consensus on how to improve farmed fish welfare. To address these issues, we developed an interactive approach that could be used during stakeholder meetings to (1) improve communication between different stakeholder groups, (2) build consensus on priorities for farmed fish welfare and (3) establish mechanisms to address welfare priorities. We then applied this approach during a meeting of stakeholders to identify current and future priorities for farmed fish welfare in the UK. During the meeting in the UK, stakeholders initially identified 32 areas that they felt were in need of development for future improvements in farmed fish welfare. These were further refined via peer review and discussion to the seven most important "priority" areas. Establishing a "better understanding of what good fish welfare is" emerged as the highest priority area for farmed fish welfare. The second highest priority area was "the need for welfare monitoring and documentation systems", with mortality recording proposed as an example. The other five priority areas were "[improved understanding of] the role of genetic selection in producing fish suited to the farming environment", "a need for integration and application of behavioural and physiological measures", "the need for a more liberal regime in Europe for introducing new medicines", "a need to address the issues of training existing and new workers within the industry", and "ensuring best practise in aquaculture is followed by individual businesses". Feedback from attendees, and the meeting outputs, indicated that the approach had been successful in improving communication between stakeholders and in achieving consensus on the priorities for farmed fish welfare. The approach therefore proved highly beneficial for future improvements in fish welfare in the UK.

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“…environmental problems, predators or disease (MacIntyre 2008, North et al 2008. Mortality records are essential for investigating patterns of losses across the production cycle, to benchmark expected mortality across time and monitor progress towards production goals (Dewey 2008, Soares et al 2011.…”

Section: Resale or Republication Not Permitted Without Written Consenmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors affecting variation in mortality of marine Atlantic salmon Salmo salar in Scotland

Soares

Murray²,

Crumlish³

et al. 2013

Dis. Aquat. Org.

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Databases of site production have an important role to play in the investigation and understanding of diseases, since they store valuable amounts of disease and management data. Diseases pose an important constraint to economic expansion of aquaculture. They are dependent on the complex interacting factors of pathogen, environment, and host, and the causes of death can be related to nutritional, environmental, and genetic factors of the host or infectious agents. We examined the drivers of mortality from a single site-production database, which represented one-third of Scottish farmed salmon Salmo salar L. production in 2005, to determine whether mortality 'benchmarking' data could be generalised across sites and production cycles. We show that farm mortality records play an important role in studying mortality losses and identifying of management problems in production. We found that mortalities varied across the months of the year and with the time of year of initial stocking. Production cycles that started in the third quarter of the year had the highest mortality overall. Furthermore, we found site-to-site variation in mortality that may have been caused by either random occurrence of epidemics and environmental events or other local effects.KEY WORDS: Mortality · Disease · Database · Aquaculture Resale or republication not permitted without written consent of the publisherDis Aquat Org 103: [101][102][103][104][105][106][107][108][109] 2013 host (Snieszko 1974, Hedrick 1998. Prevention is a key element in the control of disease establishment (Wagner et al. 2002). A good level of understanding of the various factors predisposing to or causing diseases in farmed fish (Menzies et al. 1996) allows more efficient disease control in fish populations. Early and precise diagnosis, effective prevention measures and accurate epidemiological surveys are essential for minimizing the impact of infectious and non-infectious diseases in fish culture.In the production of marine salmon, the variation in data management among sites is broad, as is seen in other agricultural sectors such as the dairy industry (Kelton et al. 1997). Site management databases may vary from simple and paper-based through to complex computerised systems (Soares et al. 2011). A wide range of information is recorded in these databases, which often includes water temperature, stock origin, age, feed intake and mortality. These databases have an important role to play in the investigation and understanding of diseases, since they store valuable data for epidemiologists and can allow quantification of production losses over time. Furthermore these data can facilitate development of effective disease control strategies (Menzies et al. 1996, Crockford et al. 1999) through epidemiology.One of the most important variables recorded at the farm level is fish mortality rate (MacIntyre 2008, Anonymous 2009, Soares et al. 2011, which may include the cause of death, e.g. environmental problems, predators or disease (MacIntyre 2008, North et al. 2008...

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The Use of Stakeholder Focus Groups to Identify Indicators for the On‐Farm Assessment of Trout Welfare

Cited by 13 publications

References 16 publications

Mortality and fish welfare

Mortality and fish welfare

Achieving consensus on current and future priorities for farmed fish welfare: a case study from the UK

Factors affecting variation in mortality of marine Atlantic salmon Salmo salar in Scotland

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