Jamie Gittins
Celebrated artist Isabella Cotier has created a travelling mural to combat the cruelty farmed fish face at slaughter.
The art installation was created to support our Forgotten Fish campaign, which calls on the Government to give farmed fish the same legal protections at slaughter as other farmed animals.
Cotier’s work has previously featured in publications including The New York Times and Vogue, and her drawings have appeared on Gucci clothing.
Two images appear on the mural - one of human characters sleeping atop giant fish, and another of three figures drinking tea underwater inside a sea cage, used for fish farming.
I want to remind the viewer that fish are creatures with their own agency who deserve respect like any other animal. Art is a great tool to help combat difficult subjects - I hope people will develop their own narratives hidden within the drawings and begin to question fish farming with an open mind.
~ Isabella Cotier, artist
Fish are the second most farmed animal in the country after chickens, with up to 86 million slaughtered each year - more than pigs, cows, sheep, turkeys and ducks combined.
However, there is little oversight of their welfare at slaughter in the UK, and no legal provisions detailing how to kill fish in a minimally painful way. This means that animal abuse is less likely to be detected or punished, as welfare is currently regulated by the fish farming industry itself.
This is despite the fact that Scotland is the third biggest producer of farmed salmon in the world. The country is lagging behind the largest producer of farmed salmon, Norway, which already has a law mandating the pre-slaughter stunning of farmed fish.
The Government’s Animal Welfare Committee is due to release an opinion on the welfare of fish at slaughter this autumn - in the past, in opinions in 1996 and 2014, they recommended updating the law to provide detailed stunning and slaughter requirements for farmed fish.
One of the biggest obstacles to gathering support for fish is people think they are so different from us, and can’t recognise their suffering. That is why Isabella’s work is so important: by depicting fish in a magical and dreamlike context we can suddenly see their value. Social progress is driven by emotional change as much as intellectual change, and by challenging our preconceptions Isabella has made a profound argument through her art - that fish are animals worth protecting.
~ Amro Hussain, Senior Public Affairs Lead at The Humane League UK
You can take action to help fish now by signing our petition calling on the Government to give them the same legal protection at slaughter as other farmed animals.
Update 2024: the AWC yet again recommended fish need more protection at the time of slaughter - see here for more information.
