The Institute of Marine Research is the Norwegian government’ s centre of competence and main advisor when it comes to animal welfare within fisheries and aquaculture. IMR's Animal Welfare Research Group is responsible for cultivating expertise around animal welfare. A priority is to work to improve knowledge of welfare in farmed fish, including how it can be measured appropriately and how the fish's welfare needs can be met.
The Norwegian Animal Welfare Act protects marine mammals, sea birds, fish, decapods and octopuses. Animal welfare focuses on the animal’s subjective experience, and to what extent its basic needs for environment, nutrition, and safety are fulfilled. When we breed animals in captivity, we assume control over their living conditions, and therefore we have a particular responsibility for their welfare. The Animal Welfare Research Group addresses this responsibility through a wide range of projects, investigating critical topics such as environmental variability within aquaculture cages, environmental preferences of fish, and how farmed fish cope with environmental variation (such as temperature variations, oxygen levels, currents, light conditions, or pressure/depth) and mechanical handling (such as pumping, crowding, lice treatment, etc.).
In response to the challenge of salmon lice infestations, the aquaculture industry has developed various prevention technologies and innovative treatment strategies or methods. It has become apparent, however, that these methods often pose significant hazards. Treatments may injure or even cause mortality if they fail to account for the biology and stress tolerance of the fish. Our task is to address this risk: we investigate which treatments fish can withstand and which environmental conditions they can cope with. Furthermore, we explore if, and how, fish might adapt to the novel environments introduced by new farming technologies, such as sea cages in exposed sites, submerged sea cages, or closed containment systems.
We are also actively engaged in developing and verifying objective indicators and protocols for evaluating fish welfare, investigating the short- and long-term effects of acute and chronic stress, exploring mechanisms for individual variation in coping with the same environment (considering genetic or developmental factors), studying of the learning ability of fish, and explore how we can positively influence fish behaviour.
