Injuries and deformities in fish: their potential impacts upon aquacultural production and welfare

Chris Noble, Hernán A. Cañon Jones, Børge Damsgård, Matthew J. Flood, Kjell Ø. Midling, Ana Roque, Bjørn-Steinar Sæther, Stephanie Yue Cottee

Fish can be the recipients of numerous injuries that are potentially deleterious to aquacultural production performance and welfare. This review will employ a systematic approach that classifies injuries in relation to specific anatomical areas of the fish and will evaluate the effects of injury upon production and welfare. The selected areas include the (1) mouth, (2) eye, (3) epidermis and (4) fins. These areas cover a large number of external anatomical features that can be injured during aquacultural procedures and husbandry practices. In particular, these injuries can be diagnosed on live fish, in a farm environment. For each anatomical feature, this review addresses (a) its structure and function and (b) defines key injuries that can affect the fish from a production and a welfare perspective. Particular attention is then given to (c) defining known and potential aquacultural risk factors before (d) identifying and outlining potential short- and long-term farming practices and mitigation strategies to reduce the incidence and prevalence of these injuries. The review then concludes with an analysis of potential synergies between risk factors the type of injury, in addition to identifying potential synergies in mitigation strategies. The paper covers both aquaculture and capture-based aquaculture.