Welfare Indicators for Common Carp and European sea bass during live transportation and at harvest: short review

The relevant welfare indicators during the transport and harvest for the two aquaculture important fish species, the European seabass, Dicentrarhus labrax and the common carp, Cyprinus carpio are provided herein to develop a future monitoring framework and facilitate National Competent Authorities (NCAs) in conducting controls. The indicators have been prospected and then extracted from the meritory scientific and other publicly available literature (i.e., project, meetings and WS reports), reviewed and selected to develop a panel of robust multidisciplinary operational welfare indicators. For easier orientation and technical approach, selected indicators are grouped into three main categories: 1. Resource-based indicators; 2. Management-based indicators; and 3. Animal-based indicators (overall fish population and individual fish). The selected indicators are useful to provide validated, reliable, scalable, and easy-to-use operational welfare score index and assessment method for the European seabass and common carp in transport and harvest.