Charity condemns lack of routine fish-slaughter inspections in England and Wales

Animal Equality UK has criticised the absence of routine or mandatory inspections at fish slaughterhouses in England and Wales, saying up to 77 million fish are slaughtered in the UK each year. The charity said the Animal and Plant Health Agency, the Fish Health Inspectorate and the Food Standards Agency had each confirmed that they did not conduct regular or mandatory inspections of fish slaughterhouses. Abigail Penny, Animal Equality UK’s executive director, said fish were capable of experiencing pain and described the lack of a government agency responsible for checking their welfare at slaughter as a serious gap.

She called for species-specific slaughter legislation backed by an inspection system. The charity said official concerns about farmed-fish slaughter dated back decades. In 1996, the Farm Animal Welfare Council recommended legislation, and the issue was revisited in 2014 and 2024.

In its latest consideration, the advisory body urged governments across the UK to require fish to be stunned before slaughter and to establish inspections to enforce the standards. The UK government committed in its Animal Welfare Strategy for England, published in December 2025, to introducing humane-slaughter requirements for farmed fish. However, draft legislation has not yet been published.

Penny said decision-makers had known for 30 years that farmed fish needed legal protection, arguing that government promises did not protect animals while legislation remained outstanding. She said delays left millions of fish at risk of prolonged and painful deaths. Animal Equality UK estimates that about 7,742 tonnes of trout are killed annually in England and Wales.

The British Trout Association says the UK has nearly 290 trout farms, including hatcheries, concentrated in northern and southern England and southern Scotland. An APHA spokesperson rejected the suggestion that fish farms were not regulated or inspected. The agency said it investigated suspected poor-welfare cases at fish farms, while the Fish Health Inspectorate carried out inspections on behalf of the government.

APHA said it would take further action where there was evidence of cruelty or neglect.