Gaffney Leigh P, Lavery J Michelle
National Animal Welfare Representative, Code Development Committee (NFACC) for the Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Farm Animal Care Council (NFACC), Ottawa, ON, Canada.
Department of Biology, University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada.
Front Vet Sci. 2022 Jan 25;8:768558. doi: 10.3389/fvets.2021.768558. eCollection 2021.
Aquaculture is a growing industry worldwide and Canadian finfish culture is dominated by marine salmonid farming. In part due to increasing public and stakeholder concerns around fish welfare protection, the first-ever Canadian Code of Practice for the Care and Handling of Farmed Salmonids was recently completed, following the National Farm Animal Care Council's (NFACC) rigorous Code development process. During this process, both the Scientific (responsible for reviewing existing literature and producing a peer-reviewed report that informs the Code) and Code Development (a diverse group of stakeholders including aquaculture producers, fish transporters, aquaculture veterinarians, animal welfare advocates, food retailers, government, and researchers) Committees identified research gaps in tandem, as they worked through the literature on salmonid physiology, health, husbandry, and welfare. When those lists are combined with the results of a public "top-of-mind" survey conducted by NFACC, they reveal several overlapping areas of scientific, stakeholder, and public concern where scientific evidence is currently lacking: (1) biodensity; (2) health monitoring and management, with a focus on sea lice infection prevention and management; (3) feed quality and management, particularly whether feed restriction or deprivation has consequences for welfare; (4) enclosure design, especially focused on environmental enrichment provision and lighting design; and (5) slaughter and euthanasia. For each of these five research areas, we provide a brief overview of current research on the topic and outline the specific research gaps present. The final section of this review identifies future research avenues that will help address these research gaps, including using existing paradigms developed by terrestrial animal welfare researchers, developing novel methods for assessing fish welfare, and the validation of new salmonid welfare indices. We conclude that there is no dearth of relevant research to be done in the realm of farmed salmonid welfare that can support crucial evidence-based fish welfare policy development.
水产养殖是全球一个不断发展的产业，加拿大的鱼类养殖以海洋鲑科鱼类养殖为主。部分由于公众和利益相关者对鱼类福利保护的关注度不断提高，在国家农场动物护理委员会（NFACC）严格的准则制定过程之后，加拿大首个养殖鲑科鱼类护理与处理实践准则最近完成。在此过程中，科学委员会（负责审查现有文献并撰写一份经同行评审的报告以指导准则制定）和准则制定委员会（由包括水产养殖生产者、鱼类运输者、水产养殖兽医、动物福利倡导者、食品零售商、政府和研究人员在内的不同利益相关者组成）在梳理鲑科鱼类生理学、健康、养殖和福利方面的文献时，同步确定了研究空白。当这些清单与NFACC进行的一项公众“首要问题”调查结果相结合时，它们揭示了目前缺乏科学证据的几个科学、利益相关者和公众关注的重叠领域：（1）生物密度；（2）健康监测与管理；重点是预防和管理海虱感染；（3）饲料质量与管理，特别是饲料限制或剥夺是否会对福利产生影响；（4）养殖设施设计，尤其侧重于提供环境富集和照明设计；以及（5）屠宰和安乐死。对于这五个研究领域中的每一个，我们简要概述了该主题的当前研究，并概述了存在的具体研究空白。本综述的最后一部分确定了有助于填补这些研究空白的未来研究途径，包括利用陆地动物福利研究人员开发的现有范式、开发评估鱼类福利的新方法以及验证新的鲑科鱼类福利指标。我们得出结论，在养殖鲑科鱼类福利领域，有大量相关研究有待开展，这些研究可为基于关键证据的鱼类福利政策制定提供支持。
