Establish a code of practice for farmed fish in the UK (trout and salmon) (Animal Ask)

OVERVIEW

Whilst working with Animal Equality UK on their Ask Prioritisation, we saw an avenue for further exploration and prioritisation of asks within the wider UK context. We want our research to be as useful to as many groups as possible and as such, decided to run a simultaneous research process for the full UK context outside of the limitations of Animal Equality UK’s scope. We contacted all major animal advocacy organisations in this region and they were keen to understand the results of this UK-wide scoping following our research. We would like to thank the experts we looked to for guidance in this report. We recommend that any organisations wishing to work on this issue to get in touch with both ourselves and with Advocates for Animals, a UK-based law firm who have extensive knowledge on this matter.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This is a summary research report by Animal Ask on behalf of UK animal advocacy organisations, investigating whether establishing a welfare-based Code of Practice for Scottish salmon could be a recommended intervention for improving the welfare of salmon in the UK.

The lack of an official Code of Practice for farmed fish in the UK is a glaring omission: they are one of the few farmed animals in the UK that does not have one. The implementation of an official Code of Practice is especially important given their high population and the extreme neglect of their welfare by present unofficial industry standards. They suffer from a host of welfare issues, of which the most significant are sea lice, sea lice treatments, cleaner fish welfare, and slaughter. It appears clear that the industry is failing to regulate itself.

Moreover, there appears to be fertile ground for work on the subject since there is an ongoing review of the regulation of the Scottish aquaculture industry, pushed by the Scottish Green Party who have goals to more radically reform the industry. Though so far the discussion of the review has centred around impact on humans and the environment, politicians could be receptive to the inclusion of animal welfare in the reconstruction of industry regulation.

Despite these points in favour, there are also some considerations against working on this ask. These include that virtually all salmon farms are currently signed up to the Code of Good Practice - which, though vague and inadequate, does offer some minimal protection - while 70% of farms are signed up to RSPCA standards. For an official code to be most impactful, it would have to exceed these standards. While there is room to do so, even for the higher RSPCA standards, it may be difficult to get a code with higher standards passed. Nevertheless, a new Code of Practice could still be impactful if it covered for specific weaknesses in these unofficial codes, if it increased enforcement of these regulations, or if it served as a first step to enable stronger legislative tasks in the future.

Overall, we consider this a strong ask and recommend it to UK organisations. To be most effective, work must be started before the review is completed.