In terms of the attention we have paid to their welfare, fish and insects aren’t so different. They are both highly diverse groups of species that often get treated as a single monolith, are increasingly used by humans in a variety of ways, and have little to no existing research on their welfare in captivity. Until very recently, fish were largely ignored by welfare science in favour of terrestrial vertebrate species. But with aquaculture now representing the fastest-growing animal production industry in the world, more fish are being bred, reared, and killed by humans each year than ever before. This trend has led to increased public interest and concern around fish welfare and the concurrent development of the field of fish welfare science. In this presentation, we outline the major challenges this field has faced as it has developed. We also discuss how entomologists can learn from these challenges and make recommendations for the development of insect welfare science that will hopefully increase the likelihood of this new field’s success.
