Invertebrate Welfare — November 2020
Invertebrate welfare
Roger Crisp, writing on the Practical Ethics blog from Oxford, responded to Irina Mikhalevich and Russell Powell’s recent publication on invertebrate animal ethics, Minds without spines: evolutionarily inclusive animal ethics.
Crisp overall agreed with most of the points of Minds without spines (an exciting claim in a prominent ethics blog), noting, “Even if the probability is very small that the argument I have just made is correct, the numbers at stake are such that our current attitude to invertebrates may involve us in committing very great wrongs indeed.”
BioEdge, a bioethics blog, also shared a summary of Minds without spines without commentary.
Lars Chittka, a prominent Zoologist and Ethologist at the Queen Mary University of London, gave the Baerends Lecture at the Netherlands Society for Behavior Biology Annual Meeting, focusing his talk on insect consciousness.
The lecture focused on complex wasp and bee behaviors that might indicate consciousness.
Chittka has previously written on the subject of insect consciousness and its implications with Catherine Wilson and other collaborators.
Jason Schukraft published a brief summary of his research into how and why valenced experiences might differ across species.
Since I discussed the research last month, I’ll refer to October’s newsletter. If you have been waiting to dive into the full research, the summary is a great place to start.
Invertebrate farming and harming
210 - 530 billion farmed shrimp and prawns
This month, Charity Entrepreneurship (CE) released their preliminary ideas for potential interventions to improve the welfare of farmed shrimp.
An estimated 210 to 530 billion shrimp and prawns are raised for food annually.
CE recommended improving dissolved oxygen levels in water, starting by targeting whiteleg shrimp production in Vietnam.
CE considered several different water quality interventions for shrimp before landing on this recommendation.
Further research on potentially promising shrimp welfare interventions, and the welfare issues facing farmed shrimp, is forthcoming from Rethink Priorities (who, from draft materials, have reached some different conclusions regarding the most promising next steps for improving shrimp welfare). [Note that I am employed by Rethink Priorities].
Relatedly, an industry-focused website, The Fish Site, published an in-depth review of how biomass estimation errors can cause lost profits for shrimp farms. The post appears to be sponsored content paid for by Alune, an aquaculture financing and consulting organization.
Farmers use estimates of shrimp biomass on their farms in order to calculate feed conversion ratios (how much feed is converted into body-mass), vitamin dosages, and timing. An accurate picture of shrimp biomass helps farmers understand how to respond to disease outbreaks and other issues.
Reducing biomass estimate errors from ±5% to ±3% is estimated to have the potential to increase profits by €40MM across the entire European aquaculture industry according to a report from the European Commission.
Based on a very shallow review of related literature I conducted, it seems plausible that more accurate biomass estimates would improve welfare by lowering pre-slaughter mortality. Primarily, welfare improvements would occur by improving how farmers respond to virus and disease outbreak. On net, this could reduce the overall number of shrimp affected by farming.
Companies are now developing machine vision and acoustic analysis tools that improve biomass estimates on shrimp farms.
Insect raised to feed pets…
Purina has released a new line of pet food that includes black soldier fly protein.
The product, “Purina Beyond Nature Protein” is only available in Switzerland currently, though Purina plans to expand to other countries soon.
Purina’s supplier for the black soldier fly protein in the product is unclear.
… and raised to feed livestock and fish
InnovaFeed has announced that they are building the world’s largest insect protein production facility, to be built in Decatur, Illinois.
The facility is being built in conjunction with ADM, one of the world’s largest food processors and producers of agriculture feed.
The plant will produce black soldier fly larvae, and has a target production volume of 60,000 annual tonnes of animal feed, which would double the current annual global production of insect protein.
The insects will be partially fed on corn waste products provided by ADM, reducing production costs.
This is likely the first of several facilities that will be built by companies with significant venture capital investment, such as Protix and Ÿnsect.
Miscellaneous
A lab in Norway is researching using gene editing techniques to increase resistance to sea lice in Atlantic salmon.
The project aims to identify the genetic basis of the reduced sea lice populations on coho and pink salmon, and replicate these features in Atlantic salmon, who are more susceptible to sea lice infestations.
The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals protested the treatment of invertebrates in a reality TV show called, “I’m A Celebrity — Get Me Out Of Here.”
They apparently engaged the show’s production company, and specifically drew attention to the fact that invertebrates aren’t protected by animal welfare laws in the UK.