Cognitive enrichment to increase fish welfare in aquaculture: A review

While most animals have received increasing attention for their welfare, consideration for fish welfare has started more recently, particularly since the recognition that fish have emotions and complex cognitive abilities. Housing conditions in fish farms do not always meet fish ethological requirements as these conditions lack sufficient sensory and cognitive stimulations. An approach to address this issue involves enriching the rearing environment by including social, food, physical, or cognitive stimuli. Cognitive enrichment (CE) is a recent but promising concept to improve fish welfare by manipulating the predictability and controllability of their environment. It relies not only on the ability of fish to predict positive and negative events but also on their ability to perform and succeed in operant conditioning. In our present review, we identified four categories of CE: (i) feeding predictability, (ii) predictability of a negative event, (iii) operant conditioning through self-feeders, and (iv) learning experiences. Existing CEs were reviewed for their effects on behaviour, brain, zootechnical performances, and welfare in terms of physiological stress or physical integrity in the aquarium and farmed teleost fish. The review highlights unbalanced categories and the lack of adequate multidisciplinary analyses to assess the effects of these categories on fish welfare. Providing free access to self-feeders seems to be a good strategy, given its positive effects on zootechnical and physiological parameters. Other categories showed contradictory and species-dependent results; hence, further studies are required to confirm the benefits of CE on fish welfare. Finally, further investigations should also validate current CE systems and assess other strategies that may trigger positive emotions in fish

Prospective pisciculture 2021 : quels scénarios ?

National audienc

Cognitive enrichment to increase fish welfare in aquaculture: A review

International audienceWhile most animals have received increasing attention for their welfare, consideration for fish welfare has started more recently, particularly since the recognition that fish have emotions and complex cognitive abilities. Housing conditions in fish farms do not always meet fish ethological requirements as these conditions lack sufficient sensory and cognitive stimulations. An approach to address this issue involves enriching the rearing environment by including social, food, physical, or cognitive stimuli. Cognitive enrichment (CE) is a recent but promising concept to improve fish welfare by manipulating the predictability and controllability of their environment. It relies not only on the ability of fish to predict positive and negative events but also on their ability to perform and succeed in operant conditioning. In our present review, we identified four categories of CE: (i) feeding predictability, (ii) predictability of a negative event, (iii) operant conditioning through self-feeders, and (iv) learning experiences. Existing CEs were reviewed for their effects on behaviour, brain, zootechnical performances, and welfare in terms of physiological stress or physical integrity in the aquarium and farmed teleost fish. The review highlights unbalanced categories and the lack of adequate multidisciplinary analyses to assess the effects of these categories on fish welfare. Providing free access to self-feeders seems to be a good strategy, given its positive effects on zootechnical and physiological parameters. Other categories showed contradictory and species-dependent results; hence, further studies are required to confirm the benefits of CE on fish welfare. Finally, further investigations should also validate current CE systems and assess other strategies that may trigger positive emotions in fish

Fild'Or : Bases génétiques pour l'amélioration de la qualité de la daurade royale d'élevage Sparus aurata

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5 Scénarios pour la pisciculture française en 2021

L’Inra a souhaité engager une réflexion prospective sur l’évolution de différentes filières animales sur le territoire national afin de mieux programmer les recherches. La prospective sur la pisciculture a été initiée au sein de la commission Inra filière Poissons avec la volonté d'associer différents acteurs de la filière. Chercheurs de l’Inra et des autres instituts de recherche dans le domaine piscicole se sont joints à des partenaires professionnels et institutionnels pour élaborer une vision partagée des futurs possibles de la pisciculture en France en 2021. L’objectif est de disposer d’images cohérentes et contrastées de l’avenir afin d’identifier les défis à relever et d’intégrer les enjeux locaux et nationaux dans le contexte international pour choisir les orientations de recherche et hiérarchiser les priorités