About Fishwelfare.net
This website serves as a repository and reference point for information relating to fish welfare. The site aims to increase awareness of current and emerging fish welfare concerns.
The majority of information contained within fishwelfare.net is available in the Articles section. In the Articles section visitors to fishwelfare.net have the opportunity post short articles and disseminate information regarding fish welfare. Information posted in these e-journal style articles might include the outputs of fish welfare research (i.e. brief over-views of published papers, abstracts etc.), news items, job postings, conference notifications or any relevant article within the area of fish welfare. For more information about posting articles on fishwelfare.net please go to the contribute article page.
History of Fishwelfare.net
Fishwelfare.net was developed in 2005 with funding from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra; project number: AW1205). At this time there were a number of ongoing research projects relating to farmed fish welfare and fishwelfare.net was developed as a repository of information relating to those and other research initiatives. In its original format fishwelfare.net contained a number of static information pages covering many aspects of fish welfare and fish welfare research.
In 2009 the Aquatic Population Health and Welfare Research Group, based at the Institute of Aquaculture, University of Stirling, received funding from the Universities Federation of Animal Welfare (UFAW) and the University of Stirling to upgrade fishwelfare.net. The site was re-developed and now incorporates an e-journal format, where visitors can post their own articles relating to fish welfare. In this format fishwelfare.net not only provides an important repository of information on fish welfare issues, but it also represents a key dissemination route for knowledge exchange. Fishwelfare.net is a resource for all people with an interest in fish welfare.
Why the interest in fish welfare?
The welfare of all farm animals, including fish, has become a high profile issue and there is increasing pressure on regulatory authorities to legislate on fish welfare. The need to base legislation on sound data has been identified, amongst others, by the UK Farm Animal Welfare Council and the European Parliament's Committee on Fisheries. The fish farming industry has corroborated the need for scientific data on which to base regulation and is supportive of research addressing this need.
Much of the current interest and research in fish welfare is related to aquaculture and this website therefore focuses primarily on the welfare of farmed fish. However, there are many ways in which human activities can affect the welfare of fish and through the Articles page this website provides a dynamic way to provide information on emerging, current or long standing issues regarding any aspect of fish welfare.