There is increasing awareness for animal welfare, starting first with the pet dog/cat, then to farmed terrestrial animals and now with aquatic animals. There are the more traditional organisations like the RSPCA and the animal ethics committees at educational institutes; then there are the extremists like PETA and new groups such as sentient.org.au that are raising awareness on animal welfare.
Likewise, there is an ever increasing body of knowledge being generated to help us understand what is needed to improve conditions and we would do well to incorporate it in the business of fish farming.
This paper is one more step closer towards providing better welfare for farmed fish.
| Aquaculture | |||||||||||||||||
| Volume 329, Number 2 (January 2012) | |||||||||||||||||
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Crowding, pumping and stunning of Atlantic salmon, the subsequent effect on pH and rigor mortis | ||||||||||||||||
| Authors: | Bjorn Roth, Endre Grimsbø, Erik Slinde, Atle Foss, Lars Helge Stien, Ragnar Nortvedt | ||||||||||||||||
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| Source: | Aquaculture, Volume 329, Number 2 (January 2012) | ||||||||||||||||
| Page Numbers: | 178 – 180 | ||||||||||||||||
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| Abstract: | An optimum setting for electrical stunning of Atlantic salmon under commercial conditions was tested and compared against percussive stunning before and after pumping and at increasing durations of crowding (0.5 and 3h). For electrical stunning the fish were exposed to 60V, 100HzAC+DC for 6s after pumping. The results show that there were no significant differences in muscle pH or rigor index between fish exposed to electricity or a percussive force. Pumping and crowding did have a significant effect. Pumping alone halved the time until maximum rigor from 24 to 12h post mortem. Increasing crowding for 3h caused a significant drop in muscle pH and the time until onset of maximum rigor tension was reduced to 6h post mortem. We conclude that optimum electrical stunning performs equally well as percussive stunning and that future challenges for improving the pre rigor times for Atlantic salmon lays in the pumping and crowding conditions, and not in the selected stunning technique. | ||||||||||||||||
| Citation: | Bjorn Roth, Endre Grimsbø, Erik Slinde, Atle Foss, Lars Helge Stien, Ragnar Nortvedt . Crowding, pumping and stunning of Atlantic salmon, the subsequent effect on pH and rigor mortis. Aquaculture, Volume 329, Number 2 (January 2012), pp. 178-180, | ||||||||||||||||
| URL: | http://ejournals.ebsco.com/direct.asp?ArticleID=492D8A922079FCCBD2DE | ||||||||||||||||
