FISH WELFARE INITIATIVE

STARTED: Incubation Program 2019

SEED GRANT: $50,000

Haven King-Nobles
Co-founder, Executive Director

MONEY FUNDRAISED TO DATE (Aug 2023): $1,400,000

TEAM SIZE (Aug 2023): 24

Thomas Billington

Co-founder, Director of Impact and Evaluation

WEBSITE: https://www.fishwelfareinitiative.org/

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Fish Welfare Initiative works with farmers, corporations, and governmental agencies to improve the welfare of fish as much as possible

CURRENT OR PREDICTED IMPACT:

1.48 M fish potentially helped through welfare improvements

COST-EFFECTIVENESS:

1.3 fish potentially helped per 1 dollar

SIGNIFICANT UPDATES:

FWI completed their first successful corporate trial run—the first time in India where a corporation procured higher welfare fish (April 2023)
FWI published their 2022 in review (January 2023)
FWI hit their millionth fish helped (December 2022)
FWI published their Version 2 Welfare Standard, which they expect to be critical for enabling greater scaling (December 2022)
FWI was recognized as an Animal Charity Evaluators Standout Charity (November 2022)
FWI held a roundtable event in India for corporations to discuss fish welfare—the first event of its kind (July 2022)
FWI hosted the first ever Aquatic Animal Welfare Forum at the World Conference on Farm Animal Welfare in China (May 2022)
FWI published their 2021 in Review. In India, FWI recently held two local events where they discussed the importance of animal welfare in aquaculture with several dozen farmers and community leaders. This is part of their strategy for increasing farmer engagement in, as well as public and government support for, their Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture (ARA). 58 fish farms are currently enrolled in the ARA and are improving the welfare of fish on their farms. In China, FWI is preparing to host the first ever fish welfare forum at ICCAW’s World Conference on Farm Animal Welfare (January 2022).
Hit 50th farmer commitment to Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture in India (November 2021)
Secured India’s first corporate commitment for fishes (September 2021)
Launched Alliance for Responsible Aquaculture to work with farmers in India to improve fish welfare (June 2021)
Completed China and Philippines Scoping Reports (December 2020)
Hired India Managing Director, Karthik Pulugurtha (October 2020)
Completed India Scoping Report (October 2020)
Completed Vietnam Scoping Report (March 2020)

ACHIEVEMENTS:

Estimated fish lives improved: 1.4M
Farms transitioned: Transitioned 79 farms to higher welfare practices
Precedent setting: Built one of the first models for helping fishes in India and the Philippines, held India’s first corporate roundtable on fish welfare, hosted China’s first Aquatic Animal Welfare Forum at the World Conference on Farm Animal Welfare
Movement Building: Built a team of about 20, most of whom are Indian, half are from local regions, and most haven't been involved in the animal movement previously.
Welfare Improvements R&D: Conducted some of the first research on improving the welfare of Indian major carp

IMPORTANT PUBLICATIONS:

Fish Welfare Improvements in Aquaculture (2021)
India Scoping Report (2020)
Philippines Scoping Report (2020)

ROOM FOR MORE FUNDING IN 2023:

Estimated funding gap of $800,000 for 2024, although they have not yet published their plans for then and would like to withhold significant fundraising until they have done so (in the next 2-3 months). See their donation page for more information.
Funding proposal