Non-Invasive Methods for Assessing the Welfare of Farmed White-Leg Shrimp (Penaeus vannamei)

SIMPLE SUMMARY: Each year, approximately 167 billion Penaeus vannamei (white-leg shrimp) are farmed worldwide from an estimated total of more than 400 billion marines and freshwater shrimp farmed. In this context, the welfare of decapod crustaceans, the group with the most farmed animals on the planet, is becoming an increasingly important issue for researchers and society, and this debate will soon reach shrimp labs and farms. This article presents protocols specifically designed to measure the welfare of P. vannamei at all stages of their production cycle, from reproduction through larval rearing and postlarval transport to juvenile rearing in earthen ponds. These protocols were developed using four domains of welfare: nutrition, environment, health, and behaviour. Together, they help assess the fifth domain: psychology. The assessment protocols also include reference values for each indicator and three possible values for animal welfare on a continuum from positive (score 1) to very negative (score 3). Our assessment protocols can identify the critical points in the shrimp aquaculture process and are an essential step towards improving the welfare of farmed shrimp worldwide. ABSTRACT: Gradually, concern for the welfare of aquatic invertebrates produced on a commercial/industrial scale is crossing the boundaries of science and becoming a demand of other societal actors. The objective of this paper is to propose protocols for assessing the Penaeus vannamei welfare during the stages of reproduction, larval rearing, transport, and growing-out in earthen ponds and to discuss, based on a literature review, the processes and perspectives associated with the development and application of on-farm shrimp welfare protocols. Protocols were developed based on four of the five domains of animal welfare: nutrition, environment, health, and behaviour. The indicators related to the psychology domain were not considered a separate category, and the other proposed indicators indirectly assessed this domain. For each indicator, the corresponding reference values were defined based on literature and field experience, apart from the three possible scores related to animal experience on a continuum from positive (score 1) to very negative (score 3). It is very likely that non-invasive methods for measuring the farmed shrimp welfare, such as those proposed here, will become a standard tool for farms and laboratories and that it will become increasingly challenging to produce shrimp without considering their welfare throughout the production cycle.