‘Sentience-aware’ Mowi given special award by animal welfare charity

The award was one of 27 Good Farm Animal Welfare Awards presented by CIWF today at a ceremony in London.

CIWF believes improvements in fish welfare lag behind those for terrestrial animals, largely because fish sentience is generally less recognised.

“Mowi ASA, however, has demonstrated leadership in this area by becoming the first producer to make global welfare commitments on the rearing and slaughter of Atlantic salmon,” said CIWF in a press release.

“As the world’s largest producer of Atlantic salmon (around 465,000 gutted weight tonnes per annum), this commitment is set to benefit approximately 122 million salmon per annum, across sites in Norway, Scotland, Ireland, Faroe Islands, Canada and Chile.”

Lower stocking density

CIWF said Mowi’s use of a stun-kill percussive system, in accordance with the charity’s recommendation, for 100% of its salmon from all its farm sites, ensured fish are humanely killed.

The company has also committed to a global “free from confinement” stocking density of an average of 10kg/m³ or less, in line with CIWF recommendations.

“They track stocking densities across all sites and countries at all times and their stocking densities, across their seawater sites have an average monthly standing stocking density of approximately 8kg/m³ in the Mowi group - significantly lower than the maximum permitted stocking density of 25kg/m³ allowed in sea pens, – providing the fish with more space to swim,” said CIWF.

(Editor: Stocking density in Scotland is lower, at around 1.5% fish to 98.5% water, and a maximum of 1% (10kg/m³) for organic salmon farms.)

Environmental enrichment

The charity said Mowi had also made several other global commitments in line with its recommendations, including:

• Sufficient environmental enrichment in pens
• No routine mutilations
• No use of genetic engineering or growth promoters

Dr Gordon Ritchie, group manager fish health and welfare for Mowi ASA, said the company was proud to receive the award in recognition of its standard on the humane slaughter of fish using percussive stunning.

Industry leading standards

“This policy, which matches CIWF’s Flagship recommendation, is applied to all our ocean reared salmon globally, harvested on an annual basis,” added Ritchie.

“By recognising the importance of fish sentience, Mowi has implemented several other husbandry standards directed towards the welfare and well-being of our fish.

“As the largest producer of ocean reared salmon, it is our responsibility to develop industry leading standards on welfare and sustainable practices and to make continuous improvements, all underpinned by investment in robust research and development by dedicated teams across the entire value chain.

“Mowi would like to thank CIWF for their continued direction and consultation in leading us forward and targeting other Flagship recommendations.”

A big step forward

CIWF’s global director, Dr Tracey Jones, said awareness of the sentience of fish and of the welfare issues relating to fish farming is relatively new compared to other farmed animals but getting such a big player as Mowi on board, and actively making changes to its policies, is a big step forward in achieving wider recognition of the need to improve what she claimed was “the plight of farmed fish”. 

“As the first salmon producer to make global welfare commitments for both humane slaughter and reduced stocking densities of this magnitude, Mowi really is setting an example for others to follow and wholly deserves the Special Recognition Award.”