Fish and farm animal welfare and cage rearing

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC), which oversees the global certification system for farmed fish, is consulting on  new animal welfare standards,  including more humane slaughter practices. Farmed fish with the ASC label will, among other restrictions, have to be stunned before being killed. It is possible that the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), the leading wild fishery certification organisation, will introduce its own welfare standards – wild fish usually die from suffocation on board a trawler, are rarely stunned and can be gutted before death.

Following the failed shipment of calves from France to Algeria, calls for an EU ban on live livestock exports are growing stronger.  780 young bulls destined for slaughter were not brought ashore due to incorrect health certificates. The bureaucratic misunderstanding lasted three weeks – the animals were stuck on the ship and then “slaughtered in France due to emergency circumstances”. New Zealand will ban the export of live animals in April 2023.

Open Cages Foundation fights for an end to cage farming in Poland. Almost 1.5 million citizens of the European Union Member States have already signed up to the demand for a ban on cages in livestock farming. Meanwhile, Swiss voters rejected a proposal to ban industrial animal husbandry in a referendum. The government application of VoteInfo reported the preliminary result: 62.86% of voters voted against the proposal to make the protection of the dignity of farm animals such as cattle, chickens and pigs a constitutional requirement.