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Scientists prove fish suffer “intense pain” for at least 10 minutes after catch, calls made for reforms
06-11-2025
Earth.com staff writer
Each year, more than two trillion wild and farmed fish are killed to feed humanity. Their deaths often go unnoticed. Yet beneath the surface is a simple biological fact: fish can suffer.
Rainbow trout, a species farmed and consumed across the globe, experience not just death – but a prolonged and intense form of distress when killed by air asphyxiation.
A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports shines a light on this pain and offers a pathway to reduce it.
Fish pain needs better measurement
Unlike environmental impact or public health, animal suffering lacks a universal metric. There are no equivalents to carbon footprints or life years lost. To address this, scientists developed the Welfare Footprint Framework (WFF).
This tool measures pain in minutes, allowing researchers to compare welfare outcomes across species and conditions. The research team applied this method to trout slaughter, where air exposure is still a widely used technique.
Fish, when pulled from water, begin a slow and stressful decline. Their gills collapse. They gasp in panic. Their blood chemistry spirals. Oxygen disappears while carbon dioxide builds.
These biological reactions unfold as the fish continues to move, gasp, and suffer – sometimes for as long as 25 minutes.
Fish suffer up to 25 minutes
The researchers divided the trout’s suffering into four time segments. These range from alarm at removal to the final depression of brain activity before unconsciousness.
Through behavioral, neurological, and pharmacological evidence, the team estimated that the average trout endures about ten minutes of pain that qualifies as hurtful, disabling, or excruciating.
In some conditions, this could stretch beyond 20 minutes. When adjusted by weight, that translates to 24 minutes of such pain per kilogram (about 11 minutes per pound) of fish killed.
The team used neurophysiological data like EEG signals and reflex loss to identify unconsciousness. They reviewed how fish respond to CO₂, pH imbalance, muscle exhaustion, and fear-inducing stimuli. Each pain level had specific criteria, ranging from annoyance to total disruption of basic functions.
Current methods cause painful deaths
Air asphyxiation is still legal and common in many parts of the world. But it is neither quick nor painless. Chilling in ice or using ice slurry might sound gentler, yet for cold-adapted species like trout, this method just slows down metabolism.
This can delay loss of consciousness even further, compounding the suffering. Ice exposure also risks tissue damage, thermal shock, and prolonged fear.
The research shows that suffering does not always begin at the point of slaughter. It often starts well before.
Crowding, transport, and handling all add to the fish’s cumulative pain. These pre-slaughter stressors can cause physical injury and hours of distress. Yet, regulations usually overlook them.
Stunning can help fish suffer less
The study evaluated two types of stunning: electrical and percussive. Electrical stunning, if properly used, could spare 60 to 1,200 minutes of suffering for every dollar spent. This makes it one of the most cost-effective welfare interventions known.
But implementation remains inconsistent. In many commercial settings, electrical stunning fails to reliably render fish unconscious. Poor placement of electrodes, inadequate voltage, or faulty machines may undermine the potential benefits.
Percussive stunning – a physical blow to the head – has shown better consistency in lab settings. But it’s difficult to scale. Fish vary in size. Equipment must be precisely calibrated. Worker fatigue also reduces effectiveness. Any slip means the fish remains conscious while bleeding out.
A new language for animal pain
What makes the Welfare Footprint Framework powerful is its transparency. Instead of assigning a fixed label to pain, it works with probabilities. If scientists believe there’s a 40% chance the pain is disabling and a 40% chance it is excruciating, the framework includes both.
This makes the model flexible and more reflective of real-world uncertainty. Pain, like emotion, varies between individuals. Some fish may suffer more than others, even under identical conditions.
“The Welfare Footprint Framework provides a rigorous and transparent evidence-based approach to measuring animal welfare, and enables informed decisions about where to allocate resources for the greatest impact,” noted Dr. Wladimir Alonso from Welfare Footprint Institute.
This approach mirrors models used in public health or environmental science. Just like life years lost to disease, we can now talk about minutes of suffering saved.
Implications for policies and people
Fish slaughter occupies only minutes in an animal’s life – but these minutes can be extremely painful. Compared to long-term reforms on farms, slaughter improvements are easier to implement and affect billions of lives.
The study’s authors argue that investing in better stunning tools and training workers can provide enormous welfare gains.
For policy makers, this research offers a scientific foundation to reform outdated practices. Certification schemes can set minimum stunning effectiveness based on real pain data.
Governments can use this to guide humane slaughter laws. For consumers, it gives a new way to think about what ends up on their plate.
Other fish suffer too
Though this study focused on rainbow trout, the underlying stress pathways – oxygen deprivation, acidosis, metabolic failure – are common across fish species. That means the Welfare Footprint Framework can be adapted.
Salmon, catfish, seabass, tilapia – they all may suffer in similar ways during air exposure. However, each species will need specific data.
Some tolerate low oxygen better. Others may react more strongly to ice. Future research must expand to include this diversity.
A turning point for aquatic welfare
The world is just beginning to reckon with the sentience of fish. For decades, their pain was denied or ignored. But science no longer allows that.
With trillions of fish slaughtered every year, even small improvements can have vast impact.
The WFF doesn’t just measure pain. It opens a language of empathy grounded in evidence. It lets regulators, producers, and consumers weigh the cost of change.
And perhaps, most importantly, the framework acknowledges what fish have felt all along – suffering that deserves to be seen and reduced.
The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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Fur trapping in Missouri
Dennis Bresnahan / June 9, 2025
https://neoshodaily.com/fur-trapping-in-missouri/
I listen to a radio show every Saturday called “The Bluff City Outdoor Show.” Every week they cover topics like fishing, boating, archery, hunting, trapping, and basically everything outdoors.
They usually have guests on the show that cover topics in their field of expertise. One week recently, they had a guest on who was a professional trapper.
This show was interesting to me because I really knew nothing about trapping. I had never really thought about it.
But I do realize that I never will be a trapper but what he had to say intrigued me and piqued my interest. So after the show, I looked up what I could find about trapping.
People have been trapping animals since the first Europeans landed in America. Trapping was necessary for food and clothing and as the country grew, trappers ventured farther and farther west.
Trappers and hunters kept exploring the country looking for more and newer places to trap and hunt, and this helped the country grow.
The new land that was discovered was soon settled in a westward expansion.
Many hunters and trappers earned their living by selling the meat and by selling their furs from trapping. Eventually, trappers wandered into what is now Missouri and in 1764 the City of St. Louis was founded.
People hunted and trapped west of the city in the wilderness but, eventually, trapping became a big business. This was mainly because of the beaver fur.
Beavers in Europe became basically extinct around the same time that the colonies were founded in America. In Europe, the North American beaver pelts flooded the European market and were in high demand.
Beaver pelts were used to make beaver felt hats that played a large part in a European person’s social identity. The fur trade lasted from 1670 to 1870.
The fur trade was a big industry that helped St. Louis grow. Fur trappers would bring their furs to St. Louis and get big money for them.
The fur trappers, the merchants who outfitted them with supplies, and the wholesalers who would sell and ship furs down the river through New Orleans and up the East Coast and eventually to Europe, were the richest men in St. Louis.
Most people in this French village lived in log or wooden houses but these wealthy men lived in expensive stone houses.
After the 1804 Lewis & Clark Expedition arrived back in St, Louis in 1806 from their trip to the Pacific Ocean, they bragged about all of the beaver that could be found up the Missouri River farther west.
This started a new boom in beaver trapping. Many of the men from the Lewis & Clark Expedition immediately returned back up the Missouri River to trap beavers. Some of these men were killed by hostile Indians.
Before all of these trappers ever came to Missouri, the population of beavers and other game animals was kept in check by predators like mountain lions and wolves, and by the hunting and trapping of local Indian tribes.
As settlers moved west throughout the state, the predators were eliminated and the Native Americans were either chased out or bought out. But the game animals’ populations were kept down by the trappers.
In the last few decades, the number of professional trappers has gone down tremendously. Trappers can no longer make a living anymore by only trapping because the price of fur has gone down so far.
This is mostly because of a group called “People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals” or PETA. These people have discouraged consumers from buying furs or clothing made from furs through advertising, commercials, and protests.
These are the same people who want to end deer hunting and let the deer population explode. Of course, they also want to get rid of eating all animals.
When animals have no predators or hunters or trappers, their population can explode. But nature has a way of solving this — and it is cruel.
Nature solves this problem in two ways, disease and starvation. Starvation is a long, horrible, and miserable way to die.
The PETA people, whether they know it or not, are the cruelest people on Earth because of this. There is nothing ethical about letting animals starve to death.
There are still a lot of people in Missouri who are trappers even though they can’t exclusively made a living at it. They trap animals for their personal use of the fur, or to sell the fur for what they can get, or for the meat.
The professional trapper on the radio show said that he has eaten every type of meat that he has trapped and said that beaver meat was the best he ever ate, even better than beef.
He also said that the beaver fur is warmer than any other natural fur or any man-made artificial or synthetic fur. He then told a little California tale.
Here is briefly what he said: Next to the ocean in California, the hunters would beat the baby seals to death with clubs for their furs. The PETA people were horrified by this and passed a law to stop it.
The ocean then got overcrowded by seals who then ate all the fish before they could breed more fish. This destroyed the fishing industry.
Then with all of the fish gone, the seals all starved to death. Which is more humane or ethical, one blow to the head with a club or a slow, miserable death by starvation?
There are still many trappers who make a living by trapping nuisance animals. These are the professional exterminators who don’t make their money by selling furs but are paid by those who hire them.
They are hired by farmers or homeowners who pay them to remove unwanted animals from their property. Some are paid by the job and others are paid per animal removed.
Farmers will hire a professional trapper to remove beavers who build a dam in a stream that floods their fields, or to remove otters who eat the fish in their pond or in their commercial fish-raising lagoons.
Homeowners will hire them to remove raccoons, squirrels, or bats from their attic or an opossum living under their porch. Also, they are hired to remove groundhogs, gophers, or moles from people’s yards.
Professional trappers have been hired to trap feral hogs by both farmers and conservation departments.
The Missouri Department of Conservation has regulations for hunting with hunting seasons, limits, and for types of weapons used.
Likewise, they also have trapping regulations with trapping seasons, limits, and types of traps used.
Trapping seasons and rules are set for trapping badger, grey fox, red fox, beaver, nutria, bobcat, coyote, mink, muskrat, opossum, raccoon, river otter, striped skunk, and rabbits.
This helps keep the numbers of these animals in check.
Most Missouri Conservation Areas allow trapping with a special use permit. Special rules may apply at different locations.
The trapping seasons can change yearly so check the latest Missouri Hunting and Trapping Regulations booklet.
Free copies of the updated booklet are available at MDC regional offices, MDC nature centers, and other places where permits are sold.
The booklet is also available online at mdc.mo.gov using the search tool at the top of the page.
So, go out and buy a real fur coat or hat. Help raise the demand and price for fur to help the fur trappers make a living.
