Description

This grant opportunity supports the development of innovative technologies and prototypes aimed at significantly improving the welfare of fish during capture and slaughter. The focus is on solutions that can render fish insensible to pain instantaneously, with effects that are long-lasting or permanent, verifiable, and scalable in the challenging environments of aquaculture and wild-capture fisheries. The program emphasizes practical approaches suitable for fishing vessels with limited space and power, methods effective for small wild fish caught in large quantities, and improvements or alternatives to current electrical stunning methods for farmed fish. Solutions that benefit fish welfare in the immediate pre-slaughter pipeline are also eligible if they can plausibly impact hundreds of millions of fish. Interdisciplinary teams with expertise in biology, engineering, aquaculture, and animal welfare science are encouraged to apply.