Beneath the Surface: Funding to Improve the Lives of 540 Billion Animals
From: Zoë Sigle, Farmed Animal Funders
To: Donors seeking scale, strategy, and neglected impact
Re: Beneath the Surface: Funding to Improve the Lives of 540 Billion Animals
Date: August 14, 2025
We rarely see them. Many of us rarely think of them. And yet, aquatic animals—fish, shrimp, crabs, lobsters—make up the vast majority of animals farmed for food. Each year, more than 100 billion farmed fish and 440 billion farmed shrimp are slaughtered, most without protections. Yet only 11% of global farmed animal welfare philanthropy goes to aquatic animals. That means less than 0.1% of all global philanthropy is working to alleviate suffering for 540 billion+ animals.
The Aquatic Animal Funding Circle, hosted by Farmed Animal Funders in 2025, brought funders together to increase attention towards and funding for aquatic animals.
For six months, major donors joined together to co-learn, evaluate, and co-fund solutions to improve the lives of aquatic animals. Together and with additional funding partners, we awarded over $1.5 million in grants to nine organizations working across four strategic pillars: corporate campaigns, producer training for on-farm welfare improvements, policy reform, and research & development. These interventions are tractable, scalable, and have room for more funding—a rare trifecta in philanthropy.
This edition of Cultivating Impact shares these funding opportunities with the broader philanthropic community. If you’re seeking a neglected but high-impact and tractable frontier to reduce animal suffering, this is it.
Why Aquatic Animals? Why Now?
Research shows many aquatic animals don’t just react reflexively to harm: they display changes in behavior, physiology, and even brain activity that strongly suggest they experience pain. Especially in fish, these responses mirror those seen in mammals and can be reduced with painkillers. Beyond fish, in 2022, the UK formally recognized decapod crustaceans, such as crabs, lobsters, and shrimps, as sentient beings. The scientific research and policy recognition challenge the notion that animal life underwater is devoid of suffering
The movement for aquatic animal welfare is nascent—but growing. As aquaculture expands (the UN Food & Agriculture Organization has called for a 75% increase), now is a critical window to shape industry norms before they harden into cruelty. Several recent wins signal real momentum:
Recognizing crustaceans as sentient beings in the UK Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill.
Securing major retailer commitments to end eyestalk ablation (i.e., cutting off shrimps’ eyes) and require electric stunning for shrimp.
Collaborating with aquaculture farmers in India to improve fish welfare via water quality and stocking density improvements.
Engaging with certifiers to improve the animal welfare standards of their certifications.
Preventatively banning octopus farming in various jurisdictions.
2025 Funding Recommendations
As with other realms of farmed animal advocacy, the most effective interventions often combine policy, pressure, and practical solutions. Below are four strategic pillars we recommend for urgent philanthropic attention, along with the standout organizations advancing them.
| Organization | What they'll do | Why back them |
|---|---|---|
| Pillar 1: Corporate commitments for shrimps | ||
| International Council for Animal Welfare | Hard-hitting campaigns that push EU retailers to ban ice‑slurry killing & eyestalk ablation for shrimp. | Proven (and continuous) UK retailer wins. |
| Animal Welfare Observatory | Launch Spain’s first international shrimp welfare campaign, challenging cruelty in global supply chains. | Spain is Europe’s shrimp hub; track record of retailer pledges for fish welfare. |
| Pillar 2: Producer‑level welfare improvements | ||
| Shrimp Welfare Project | Develop a low-cost electrical shrimp stunner for cost-effective, higher-welfare slaughter. | Fastest path to higher-welfare slaughter for billions of shrimp. |
| Fish Welfare Initiative | Create new fish welfare interventions in India; improve water quality & lower densities on farms in India right now; pilot China. | Promising new intervention development in key regions, direct welfare improvements now. |
| FAI Farms | Shrimp welfare training and assessment for Southeast Asian farmers; dashboards for buyers’ shrimp welfare verifications. | Turns pledges into measurable farm change in the global center of shrimp production. |
| Pillar 3: Policy lock-in | ||
| Crustacean Compassion | Pressure UK retailers (benchmark reports) and close legal loopholes on slaughter. | Retailer transparency drives change; law cements it. |
| Animal Rights Initiative | Push state bills that ban octopus farming before it scales; run a policy‑skills bootcamp. | Cost-effective pre‑emptive wins; builds activist pipeline. |
| Anonymous Organization | Policy advocacy to protect freshwater ecosystems and animals. | Reach out to FAF for more information. |
| Pillar 4: Evidence & learning pipeline | ||
| Rethink Priorities | Define the next advocacy ask for shrimp welfare after stunning; build impact tracker for secured and potential pledges. | Keeps campaigns evidence‑driven and aligned. |
| Catch Welfare Platform | Publish wild‑catch welfare guidelines + prototype affordable, practical crab/lobster stunner. | Opens the neglected wild‑capture front by bringing science and the industry together. |
Metrics That Matter
To ensure traction and transparency, FAF recommends tracking outcomes, such as:
Number of animals impacted through policy, pledges, or farm-level changes
Commitments secured from retailers or producers
Legal reforms achieved
Technologies developed or deployed (e.g. stunners, welfare dashboards)
Beyond the Circle: Additional Opportunities
The nine organizations above reflect our top recommendations, but the funding circle also reviewed proposals from 17 additional groups whose theories of change may match other funders’ interests. Some notable strategies included:
Preventing open-net salmon farming expansion
Legal advocacy to slow U.S. aquaculture growth
Campaigns to halt octopus farming in the U.S. and EU
Strengthening aquaculture certification schemes
Challenging the narrative that industrial aquaculture is climate-friendly
We welcome funders interested in these or other interventions to reach out. Proposals and evaluations are available for major donors seeking to explore these further.
How to Fund
Most of these organizations can absorb additional grants of up to $100,000 or more. If you’re ready to give, you can:
Donate directly to the recommended organizations
Or contact me to distribute a single (major) donation across multiple grantees and track your collective impact
Please let us know if you fund any of these groups, so we can coordinate, measure movement-wide progress, and reduce duplication.
Farmed Animal Funders offers pro bono philanthropic advising to qualified donors. Whether you’re new to farmed animal protection and food systems or ready to deepen your giving, we can help you navigate options, align your goals, and maximize your impact.
Contact Zoë for one-on-one advising or to request more information about these funding opportunities.
Cultivating Impact spotlights solutions to reform and replace factory farming. It aims to connect philanthropic readers with high-impact funding opportunities, where each dollar goes tremendously far to reduce animal suffering and co-benefit the climate, environment, and people.
Cultivating Impact is produced by Zoë Sigle, the Director of Programs and Philanthropic Advisor for Farmed Animal Funders, a community of 45+ foundations and individuals donating $250,000+ annually to reform and replace factory farming. Additionally, Zoë serves as a Fund Manager with the Effective Altruism Animal Welfare Fund. With a decade of experience spanning corporate engagement, grantmaking, advocacy, and grassroots organizing, Zoë combines rigorous research with deep movement knowledge to craft effective philanthropic strategies. To learn more about this cause area or for bespoke philanthropic advising, contact Zoë.
