FISH farmers have accepted that letting tens of millions of fish die of suffocation each year is unacceptable and are considering stunning the fish before they are killed. Under proposals from Brussels, the industry would have to give fish the same level of welfare as cattle, pigs and sheep.

The proposals follow growing evidence that fish may feel pain and distress. A study by the Roslin Institute, reported in The Times on Wednesday, provided some of the strongest evidence yet that fish feel pain. It can take up to ten minutes for fish to die in air.

The government-appointed Farm Animal Welfare Council and the RSPCA have repeatedly called on ministers to introduce regulations on the welfare of farmed fish. European regulations already require all other farmed animals to be stunned before slaughter, with the only exception being for religious slaughter.

Martin Potter, head of farm animals at the RSPCA and a member of the welfare council, said: “All fish should be stunned. Death by asphyxiation or by putting fish in ice is utterly unacceptable. At present there is no specific legislation on the welfare of fish. It’s a glaring gap.”

Peter Stevenson, political director of the animal rights group Compassion in World Farming, said: “The fact that it has been established that fish feel pain reinforces our call for suffocation to be banned. If we say that cattle, sheep and pigs should be treated humanely, then why shouldn’t fish?”

Salmon, which are slaughtered when they are about 2½ft long, are generally clubbed unconscious with a “priest” before being killed. Trout are too small to club and are generally left to asphyxiate on land, where they thrash about before losing consciousness. To improve the quality of the flesh, trout are sometimes put in an ice slurry; the cooling effect delays death so that they can be conscious for up to 15 minutes.

Robin Scott, chairman of the British Trout Association, said: “The industry is not at all happy about the way we are killing our fish. We accept fish feel pain as a working hypothesis and it is clearly stressing fish. The fact that fish are still asphyxiated is because we haven’t developed a practical way of stunning them. It is a big priority.”

The Government has spent about £200,000 on a project to develop an electrical stunning method for fish, which is being tested in the industry. The system, developed by the Silsoe Research Institute in Bedfordshire, involves electrocuting a water tank with 15,000 fish in it. The current and frequency has to be at just the right level to stun the fish without burning the flesh. In early trials the system used too much electricity and stunned too few fish to be commercially practical.

Farmed salmon and trout are fed meal and oils from wild-caught fish of a different species. Each pound of farmed salmon requires at least 3lb of wild-caught fish.

The Council of Europe will discuss new regulations to improve the welfare of fish, including reducing stocking densities, at a meeting next month, but any decisions are likely to take some time. There is disagreement between animal welfare groups and the industry on how harmful high stocking densities are. Up to 50,000 salmon are confined in each sea cage, with each fish allocated the equivalent of a bathtub of water. Trout are often stocked so densely that 20 1ft fish are allocated a bathtub. Animal welfare groups claim that the high stocking densities lead to cataracts, sea lice in salmon and a high level of injury and mortality. Farmed fish are also starved for about a week before slaughter, so they have no food in their intestines when they are killed.Compassion in World Farming is calling for stocking densities to be reduced dramatically. “It’s just as cruel as cramming hens into battery cages,” Mr Stevenson said.

The Government has begun an extensive research project into the impact of high stocking densities and the initial results suggest that clean water is more important than low density for animal welfare.

Julie Edgar, a spokeswoman for Scottish Quality Salmon, an industry body, said: “There is no correlation between sea lice and stocking density. We don’t need legislation. We are already doing a good job.”

A big business

The industry has strict environmental regulations but there are virtually no animal welfare controls

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