(highlight:: Shrimp Welfare is Important, Tractable, and Has Just 12 People Working On It
Summary:
Working on shrimp is important because a large number of shrimp are killed for food every year, and their sentience is significant.
However, there are only a few people working to improve their lives, making it a highly neglected area. In the last 24 months, significant and achievable improvements have been made, highlighting the potential for positive change.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Do you want to give us the basic case or the best case for working on shrimp and why it's important way to help animals?
Speaker 1
Yeah, absolutely. That's a very good question. And I would say in a nutshell, the numbers of animals trims in particular that are killed for food every year are astronomical. The evidence of their sentience is significant. And there are no more than a dozen people working to improve their lives. So it's highly neglected. And I think as we have now found in the last almost 24 months that we've been in existence, there were significant improvements to be made that were very tractable. So yeah, that would be a very simplistic way to put it.)
- Time 0:07:39
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(highlight:: The Scale of Shrimp Slaughter is Unfathomable
Summary:
In terms of scale, the number of shrimps being farmed each year is estimated to be around half a trillion with a T. If you include wild-caught shrimps, the number could be in the tens of trillions.
This would make shrimps the most farmed animal in the world and potentially the most caught in the wild as well. In comparison to land farm animals, the number of shrimps farmed and slaughtered each year is six times greater than the total number of chickens, pigs, cows, and goats combined.
The sheer magnitude of these numbers is hard to comprehend, but it's mind-boggling to see millions of animals in a small pond.
It's unreal.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
And in terms of, in terms of actual scale, do you want to give us the size of the numbers in terms of both maybe how many are affected and like maybe how bad the lives can be as well?
Speaker 1
Yeah, that's a good question. So there's, we need to, as you know, in aquatic animals, or as you may know, the animals are typically not counted as individuals, as you would in land, farmed animals. Here the, the number of shrimps produced are measured in tonnage. So we can only have estimates of how many shrimps we're talking about. But with some simple kind of volume or tonnage divided by average weights, etc, you get to around half a trillion, half a trillion with a T, shrimps being farmed each year. And that's only farmed. If you go to wild caught, so shrimps that are caught in the open ocean, we've seen estimates from think tank rethink priorities that puts it in the tens of tens of trillions. So the numbers are really, this is probably what was on page two of the report. Someone needs to work on this.
Speaker 2
By those numbers, that would make it the most farmed animal in the world. Is that right? And the most like caught in the wild, do you know?
Speaker 1
I would think that the most caught in the wild, yes, the most farmed I'm guessing by now insects will probably be, yes, insects will probably be greater number. But it's, you know, it's a total second. Yeah. And just to give it some perspective versus land farm animals, when you when you put it in comparison to chickens, for example, this is about seven times the total number of chickens That are slaughtered every year. And if we put the total number of land farm animals, which as your listeners will probably know, chickens are most of them. It's still six times the total number of land farm animals. So chickens, pigs, cows, goats, all of that put together. We farm in slaughter six times that many shrimps every year.
Speaker 3
So it's a number. Yeah, just completely.
Speaker 2
I don't know how you even begin to envisage that kind of number. It's just beyond our like, capabilities, right? To imagine such a, yeah, a trillion of something is, yeah, it's unreal.
Speaker 1
Totally agree. And it's it's mind boggling when you when you stand in front of a pond and and people tell you, oh, yeah, we have, you know, these many tons of shrimps in the pond. And you do the quick calculation and you come out at millions of animals in this little body of water, frequently, not very large in front of you. And it just blows your mind. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Yeah. I mean, I just did a very quick sum and it's like 15,000 shrimps per second for the fond animal one, which is like, still doesn't, even when it gets much smaller, you can't quite understand How this could be happening at such a high rate.)
- Time 0:08:36
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(highlight:: Working with Industry to Improve Shrimp Welfare vs Advocating to Stop Shrimp Consumption
Summary:
The decision to focus on improving welfare on farms rather than advocating for stopping consumption of shrimp was influenced by several factors.
One of the reasons is that it makes more sense for an organization to promote a plant-based diet on a larger scale rather than targeting individual species like shrimp. Additionally, the scale of the problem in the fisheries and agriculture industry is significant, with millions of people employed in the sector.
This suggests that the industry is likely to continue for decades, making it important to work on improving the lives of animals within the system.
While some organizations can focus on promoting a plant-based diet, it is crucial to address the current situation and work towards positive changes.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
And you were talking about increasing the salience of the issue as well and talking specifically about speaking at conferences and you know educating the industry. I'm interested that you have gone down the welfare angle and you're looking to improve welfare on the farms, but maybe less so on the outreach to stop consumption. How did you decide on that route over the other? Was it mainly just the chart entrepreneurship report or was there other elements of play there?
Speaker 1
So in our opinion, there were several factors. I think the first one was an organization advocating to stop consumption. To me, it makes more sense to be done by an organization that is doing this kind of let's say vegan outreach on a larger scale than an individual species. So in my mind, that message makes much more sense if someone says you should move to a plant-based diet rather than saying you should stop eating shrimp.
Speaker 3
Specifically, yeah. Exactly.
Speaker 1
And because of the problem, the scale of the problem that we were just talking about is so big, we still thought that it made sense for someone to focus narrowly on shrimp and that kind Of really led to potentially not going down the route of just saying people should stop eating shrimp, but rather we need to figure out how to improve the lives of these animals in the System that will probably be here for quite some time. I mean, as a kind of data point, I always try and remind myself that there's 60 million, I think the latest FAO numbers, estimate that somewhere around 60 million people work in fisheries And agriculture. So that, to me, just talks about the inertia that this industry has. So it was probably here for decades. So someone really needs to also work on improving the situation today. And I'm very happy that other organizations will probably take on the angle of we should move on to a plant-based diet. It's better for your health, your the environment, animals, et cetera.)
- Time 0:22:35
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(highlight:: Do Shrimps Feel Pain? Are They Sentient? An Unequivocal Yes
Summary:
Shrimp and decapod crustaceans have been found to meet several criteria for sentience, including possession of nociceptors, integrative brain regions, and adaptive responses to pain stimuli.
The evidence supporting their sentience is significant and has led to their inclusion as sentient beings in various countries' laws. This recognition is based on scientific evidence indicating that they can experience pain and distress.
The fact that governments and academia are acknowledging their sentience suggests a strong body of evidence supporting their case.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Can shrimp even suffer and do shrimps feel pain? And I bet you just roll your eyes every time you hear this, but not everyone has heard the answers. So I mean, if you're willing to oblige us, over you, the evidence behind that?
Speaker 1
Absolutely. So thankfully, there's this paper that was put out as part of Christian Compassion's work in the UK to have decouples included in the animal, in the Sentience Bill of 2022. The government commissioned a review of the evidence of Sentience of both Cephalopods and decouples to Jonathan Birch at the London School of Economics. And this is going to might get technical. But what what they did is because there's no smoking gun to prove Sentience, there's nothing that you can just say, yeah, that you know, this animal, the sentient, they look at several Different aspects of the knowledge that we have on decouples and and and cephalopods. And they basically look at eight, they look at possession of nociceptors. So whether we have the whether they have the right body parts to feel pain, whether they have integrative brain regions to know to process those stimuli that they receive in the nociceptors, Whether there's connections between those two, whether we see adaptive responses to applying NLG6 or anesthetic. So to mainly to figure out whether something is a reflex or not, you put an anesthetic on a, you know, on a body part of an animal and kind of apply an abrasive, yeah, like action and check Whether they respond differently or not, etc. State define eight. And then they check whether there's evidence in the literature, whether these animals fulfill those different criteria. And what they found is that trims fulfill a number of these criteria to more or less degree. But they also then compare it to to other or combine it with other decouples, the knowledge that we have on other decouples. And basically out of those eight, there is good evidence that decouples, you know, have high to very high confidence that they have six out of these eight different criteria. And that is essentially as much as we have for Cephalopods as well, which, you know, everybody assumes, oh, yeah, of course, octopus, octopus are obviously sentient. But then when you look at the aggregate evidence of decouples, even though they've been studied trims and specifically have haven't been studied as widely for these types of things, The evidence is pretty significant. And the recommendation that they gave was that they should all be included and regarded as a sentient and they eventually, they eventually were included as sentience in the in the in The bill. But this is I also it's important to mention that the UK is not the only country that has recognized the sentence of shrimps, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, and even the European Food And Safety Authority in as back as far back as 2005 had already recommended that decouples were included as sentience because the scientific evidence indicated that they could experience Pain and distress. So, you know, the evidence is is really is really there.
Speaker 2
Yeah, I mean, governments are known of being pretty conservative, I would say. And so, if they're likely to say something that's usually a good sign that evidence is like fairly concrete or like good enough and same as academia is also fairly conservative. So I think that's a pretty good sign that there must be a good body of evidence behind the case.)
- Time 0:28:26
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(highlight:: Examples of cephalopods v.s. decapods
Summary:
Cephalopods, such as octopuses, cuttlefish, and squid, are different from decouples, which include crabs, shrimps, crayfish, and lobsters.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Can you just define for us the difference between decouples and cephalopods in which animals fall into both of the categories?
Speaker 1
Oh, yeah, sorry. Cephalopods are more like octopuses and cuttlefish and squid and decouples are crabs, shrimps, crayfish, lobsters.)
- Time 0:32:36
- cephalopods, decapods, classification of animals, processed,

(highlight:: How Shrimp Are Farmed and The Importance of "Biosecure" Broodstock Conditions
Summary:
Shrimp farming is a complex process with several stages.
The process starts with broodstock, which are shrimps used to lay eggs. These broodstock shrimps are raised in bio-secure conditions to prevent diseases.
SPF and SPR broodstock are produced in Hawaii and Vietnam to ensure they are free from pathogens or resistant to certain diseases.
The broodstock are then shipped to countries like India, where they are placed in a broodstock maturation center to produce baby shrimp.
The baby shrimp are kept in a hatchery for about 12 days and then moved to a larger nursery tank for a month. Finally, they are transferred to a grow out pond where they stay for two to four months. The entire process takes around three and a half to six months.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
Do you want to give us like the details of from the life of shrimp from day zero when they're born to the day they're slaughtered? Like, how does that process look and the stages involved?
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's way more complicated than we expected it to be when when my co-founder and I started working on it. And for anyone who's sufficiently curious to look at the diagram of how this happens, there is a report that we published in our India scoping report on our website that talks about the Indian industry but also has some good diagrams of the different stages, the life stages of shrimp in a farming system. But to simplify it, there's the broodstock, which is kind of the shrimp that is used to lay eggs. These are typically raised under very extremely bio-secure conditions. Frequently in Hawaiian Texas, those are very big hubs to produce these kind of mother shrimps. The reason why- So bio-secure? Yeah, sorry, even if I- No, that's a good question. We really kind of kept thinking about this. It's because there's diseases are the biggest source of losses in shrimp farming industry. And these losses are in the billions of dollars every year. So you can have diseases either from contamination in the environment, if you have a pond where you have shrimps, or you can have them because the parent actually had some disease and The babies are already born with diseases. So what they do in these places is they create what are called SPF and SPR broodstock, which technically they mean specific pathogen free. So that kind of guarantees when people buy an SPF broodstock shrimp, they know that it's free of pathogen. So then they take it to wherever it is going to be reproduced in India and Vietnam and Thailand, and then they're used to reproduce. Or they are an SPR and they know that they will be resistant to certain diseases. And there's typically a trade up between kind of the speed at which shrimps are grown and then their vulnerability to diseases. But anyway, broodstock are produced in Hawaii and Vietnam frequently. Then shipped, let's say, to India where they're put in a broodstock maturation center, which is a place where they produce the baby shrimp. These broodstock are kind of here, they're subjected to eyestock ablation, which is a practice that I'm sure we'll talk about. But they start producing eggs like crazy, these eggs hatched. Then these baby shrimps are kept in a hatchery for about 12 days. Then they are all scooped out of that little tank and put in a larger tank, which is a nursery for another about month. And then again, they're scooped out of that one and moved on to a grow out pond for another anywhere between two to four months. So it's really what is between three and a half and five and a half, six months total life in the farming system.)
- Time 0:33:20
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(highlight:: The high mortality rate in shrimp farming and other forms of animal agriculture
Summary:
Shrimps are delicate creatures and have a high mortality rate, around 55%.
Disease and handling contribute to their deaths. The industry accepts these high numbers and produces more to account for the loss in the production process.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
The only thing that I would say, which has a good and a bad element to it, is that shrimps are very, I'm not sure whether the word is fragile, but they're, yeah, they're delicate animals At this right, live stage. So they do tend to try to not kill them, which is, you know, other bare minimum that you would expect. But the reality is that the mortality is still, you know, at that kind of up to nursery level is probably around 55, 0%. So it's huge. Wow. They tried to keep, you know, the water quality, they maintain it to the highest degree possible. These are the, these are the parts of the production system where the water quality can be maintained to a much greater degree, because tanks tend to be smaller. And they do kind of really fine tune, so to speak, the water quality, but still the, the, the mortality is huge.
Speaker 2
Is that for disease? Or what are the reasons for dying such a high rate?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think disease, there's always, in places where shrimp farming is performed, there's always pathogens present in the water. You know, the bodies of, the bodies of water and the rivers and canals have all been really contaminated. They're also just very fragile. And I think naturally they're species that where a lot of the babies would die even in nature. And then there's a lot of handling. As, as Amy was saying.
Speaker 2
It's always a standard way, the numbers that we just seemingly, or the industry seemingly accept in transit. I always found that even with fish that, or, or perhaps even chickens, you know, there's like these percentages of mortality in transit from like one area to another, that we don't even Think about, right? We talk about numbers for consumption. We talk about, and then when we bring that to animal lives and actually realize that so many of them aren't even making it to the consumer, they've died like in the production line at some Point. You know, they've not even gone through a slaughter process. They've died in transit, or they've died, you know, because of excess handling. I feel like these numbers are, are always just completely astounding. So then I guess also the industry is bearing that in mind and producing, you know, 50% more than they need because we're going to lose 50%. So in these trillions and trillions, these so many more individuals are coming in because we're just going to have such a loss of life during the process.)
- Time 0:37:24
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(highlight:: Welfare issues in shrimp farming: Eyestalk Ablation
Summary:
Fish welfare issues include poor water quality, stocking density, and inhumane slaughter.
Another issue is shrimp stock ablation, a practice where the eyes of female shrimp are cut off to increase egg production. However, research has shown that properly caring for female shrimp can achieve the same level of productivity without mutilation.
In fact, the offspring of non-mutilated shrimp are more robust and resistant to environmental factors and pathogens.
While the practice is being phased out in Latin America, more work is needed to eliminate it completely in Asia.
European buyers are already demanding shrimp sourced from nurseries that do not use stock ablation.
Transcript:
Speaker 2
And in terms of the welfare issues, then, so we've talked about poor water quality. We see that with fish as well. I think that's a really important one. Stocking density, obviously, if we're just packing a load in, that's not useful for the animals. Inhumane slaughter, you know, not using any sort of stunning. And, but I think the, the one that's, I didn't know about certainly before you began your work, and I started to learn more about shrimp, is I stalk ablation? Can you talk us through that process?
Speaker 1
Yeah, this is a very, this is a mutilation. Crustaceans are frequently subjected to mutilations. In the case of shrimps, the broodstock that we were talking about at the beginning of this kind of description of the life stages, the in the 70s, scientists realized that if there is A gland in the eyes of the females, that secretes a hormone that basically sends the message to the body of the female saying this is not an appropriate environment to reproduce. And it kind of with holes, the laying eggs. So by cutting off the eye, it just, it, yeah, it overpowers this natural drive not to reproduce. And it's the, the female starts laying egg and goes into like an overdrive so much so that, you know, there's the suffering of the mutilation itself. But then, because their bodies go into this kind of overdrive of laying eggs in a much quicker rate than they otherwise would, the, these females die much quicker either from the injuries Sustained at the moment of the mutilation, or because their bodies are just depleted much faster than that they would be if they are not subjected to this practice. Thankfully, there, there is a, there, there's a group of scientists, the lead researcher's name was Simao Sakarias, who proved from the University of Sterling, who proved that if The females are taken care of properly, they do not need to be subjected to this, to this practice to be as productive. So you can have a female that lays just as many eggs through their, throughout their lives. If they are kind of fed the right things, and they are kept in tanks in the conditions that are more, you know, that are better or perceived as better by the animal, which is, you know, fantastic. And which means that is something that, you know, we can demand saying you should be able to produce your baby shrimps without mutilating the female in this way, but also even more importantly, Which is something that we really highlight as much as we can anywhere we go to. What he found was that the babies of these females who were not mutilated are actually more robust, which is kind of, it makes sense, right? They're born to a mother that is less stressed and has, you know, better health conditions. And those baby shrimps end up being more resistant to, for example, salinity variation, sudden salinity variations, which is something that is kind of happens in a farming system And is bad for shrimps and can kill some shrimps. So these baby shrimps would be more resistant to that, but also to pathogens, as we talked about earlier, some of these pathogens that are always present in the water might not end up Manifesting themselves as diseases in these shrimps, which to the industry, this should be, you know, this should be all running towards, yeah, exactly. Yeah, which to their credit, in a significant part of the world, they've done it, namely in Latin America, that this practice is being phased out. And then in Asia, much less so, but this is something that the industry kind of is working on. And the buyers in Europe, primarily in the UK, but also in other places in Europe, are pushing their suppliers to only source baby shrimps from nurseries or from hatcheries that did Not use this practice. Much more work needs to be done, but it is this one is kind of moving in the right direction.)
- Time 0:42:20
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(highlight:: Improving Slaughter in Shrimp Welfare: Stunning by Eletrocution and Killing While Unconcious
Summary:
The speaker initially didn't think slaughter was a major issue for shrimps, but witnessing how they were pulled out of water and piled on top of each other made them reconsider.
There are concerns that the current method of slaughter, immersion in ice water slurry, may prolong their suffering. The speaker suggests rendering shrimps unconscious through electric shock and then immersing them in ice as a more humane method of slaughter.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
And slaughter in the case of shrimps, which is, as I mentioned, at the beginning when James asked the question of what else we had, I had changed my opinion on, we initially thought, well, You know, slaughter must be really bad, but there's all these other things that we need to work on, like poor water quality and ice-stake-able pressure, etc. But when we witnessed a quote-unquote harvest in India, and we saw how the shrimps were being pulled out of the water, and then just put on crates to be drained out of the water and piled On top of each other, and you know, it was such a horrible sight that we decided we needed to look into it much more.
Speaker 2
And is that what they're clashing as the slaughter is just asphyxiation?
Speaker 1
So typically the industry would claim that they're doing immersion in ice water slurry, so in just watery ice, which we frequently have seen that that's not the case. But even if it were, there is some evidence now, or some concern that this is really just might be even prolonging the suffering of the shrimps, because it might even just reduce the metabolic Rate, which then might immobilize them, but not necessarily render them unconscious and potentially prolong their lives. So then taking longer to die than they would have if they had only asphyxiated. I had the unfortunate event of seeing a shrimps that had been out of the water in a cold room six hours after it had been taken out of the water, and it was still moving. And I asked a person in the processing plant, is this a reflex or the shrimps actually alive? So no, no, it's alive. They sometimes come in and they last for a long time. But it's okay, because that means it will be delicious. So we did eventually started taking slaughter much more to the heart of our work, and that's now a significant portion of what we try and improve.
Speaker 2
And what is the slaughter that you recommend?
Speaker 1
So there is growing evidence that as with many species, shrimps can be rendered unconscious through an electric shock, and then while unconscious being immersed in eyes, which then Would kill them while unconscious. So in the same way that land-farmed animals would be stunned pre-slaughter, they're stunning for shrimps exist, and it's as with many crustaceans, what looks like most promising Is electrocution.)
- Time 0:48:00
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(highlight:: Shrimps Can Be Rendered Unconscious and Immersed in Ice Before Being Killed
Transcript:
Speaker 1
So there is growing evidence that as with many species, shrimps can be rendered unconscious through an electric shock, and then while unconscious being immersed in eyes, which then Would kill them while unconscious. So in the same way that land-farmed animals would be stunned pre-slaughter, they're stunning for shrimps exist, and it's as with many crustaceans, what looks like most promising Is electrocution.
Speaker 2
And actually something I didn't ask about before, but I do want to go back is how long do shrimps usually live? Because you said they usually are killed after six months in the supply chain, but what's their normal lifespan?)
- Time 0:50:29
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(highlight:: Book Recommendations: The Secret Life of Groceries and The Moment of Lift
Summary:
Discovering the secret life of groceries and the complex food system is unexpectedly fascinating.
It's essential for those working to improve food systems and for those wanting to see change. Also, The Moment of Lift by Melinda French Gates was a great non-animal related read.
Transcript:
Speaker 1
So then in addition to this, the secret life of groceries, I know it sounds really boring, but I found it really interesting to learn this whole when, you know, those of us who are working In trying to improve food systems, it's really good to understand how complex the system is. And to and to figure out how, you know, there's other people out there who might want to see this system changed. And I thought that was really good. And then non animal related, I really enjoyed reading the moment of lift by a Melinda French Gates.)
- Time 1:09:17
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