Toward Improved Public Confidence in Farmed Fish: A Canadian Perspective on Fish Welfare during Marine Transport

Abstract

One of the advantages of farmed salmon is the consistent nature of the product and its availability. Because of the remote locations of salmon farms in British Columbia (BC), Canada, providing the freshest salmon products on a daily basis and in a cost‐effective manner requires regular transport of live, market‐sized adult fish at very high densities from farm sites to processing plants. Live‐hauling also occurs annually when salmon smolts are moved to the farms from freshwater hatcheries and when fish are moved among farms. This article has two parts. The first part considers recent published works assessing Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, welfare during live‐haul transport between commercial aquaculture sites in BC, Canada, trips that can last for 2–12 h. These assessments involved novel methodologies, which are highlighted here. The results show that while juvenile and adult Atlantic salmon are stressed during loading into a live‐haul vessel, open‐hold transport in a state‐of‐the‐art vessel promotes fish recovery, thereby alleviating some of the concerns regarding fish welfare during high‐density transport. The second part of the article presents novel unpublished data on the effects on the flesh quality of Atlantic salmon of high carbon dioxide concentrations, levels that simulate those that might be encountered during closed‐hold transport.

Survival and behavioural responses of cool and warm water fish sedated with AQUI-S® 20E (10% eugenol) at high loading densities

“…Live transport can create stressful conditions for fish that may ultimately impact post‐transport survival (Harmon ). Procedures taken during transport to minimize the stress placed on fish include withholding feed 24–48 h prior to transport to minimize ammonia accumulation (Randall & Tsui ; Treasurer ), decreasing temperature prior to transport and maintaining proper temperature throughout transport (Golombieski, Silva, Baldisserotto & da Silva ; Pavlidis, Angellotti, Papandroulakis & Divanach ; Zhang, Goodwin, Pfeiffer & Thomforde ), minimizing physical handling during tank loading and offloading (Cubero & Molinero ; Farrell, Tang, Nomura & Brauner ), minimizing decreases in water quality (Erikson, Sigholt & Seland ), adding salt (Swanson, Mager, Doroshov & Cech ) and selecting proper loading densities (Urbinati, de Abreu, da Silva Camargo & Landinez Parra ; De Abreu, Sanabria‐Ochoa, Goncalves & Urbinati ; Carneiro, Kaiseler, Swarofsky & Baldisserotto ; Pearson, Small, Beecham, Sink, LaBarre & Minchew ).…”

Aqua perspectives: stakeholder attitudes and perceptions in live fish transportation practices within the Kenyan fisheries sector

“…The minimal usage of sea salts and vitamin C in the Western/Nyanza regions could be attributed to regional preferences or availability of alternative methods. Additionally, tailored anaesthetic use for specific species in Western/Nyanza and the Coastal region highlights a nuanced approach to ensure the welfare of live fish during transportation, consider-ing species characteristics and regional preferences, as advocated by Farrell et al (2010), Franks et al (2021), and Yang et al (2021. These findings emphasises on the importance of considering both species-specific needs and regional factors in developing effective water quality control methods for live fish transportation.…”

Handling Technique Development of Live Carp, Cyprinus carpio, In Cold Dry Styrofoam Box

“…For this, there are several handling phases, pre-transport, transport, and posttransport handlings. Closed transportation will yield CO2 accumulation and pH decline [7,12,4].…”