The Shrimp Welfare Report

Greetings from Shrimp Welfare Project!

We are very excited to share the Shrimp Welfare Report on which Lucas, our Research Lead, has been working the past months! We hope you will learn a lot by reading this report!

We are also happy to announce that the Shrimp Welfare Project team has recently grown and welcomed two new members in its team: Sasha Saugh, who has taken the role of Aquaculture Welfare Specialist and myself, Léa Guttmann, Shrimp Welfare Project’s new Communications Lead. You can find more information about us below.

Finally, our pilot study in India and our scoping work in Vietnam are in full swing. We are really looking forward to sharing the results when everything is ready!

Have a great week!

Léa | Communications Lead

The Shrimp Welfare Report is here! 

This report aims to assess the importance of various factors for shrimp welfare, with a particular focus on L. vannamei (also known as P. vannamei, whiteleg shrimp). Where evidence is scarce, the research is extended to other shrimps, other decapods, or even other aquatic animals.

In October, Shrimp Welfare Project was a content partner of a series of events in Hanoi, organised by HealthyFarm (a Vietnam-based social venture) and Asia for Animals Coalition on the occasion of World Farm Animals Day and World Animal Day. 

The objectives of the event was to raise issue salience on farm animal welfare and policy discussions to advocate for farm animal welfare in Vietnam. 

Lien-Huong, our Vietnam Program Coordinator, co-hosted a roundtable discussion on the challenges and opportunities for farm animal welfare advocacy in Vietnam. Among the participants were policy makers, international and local NGOs, corporates and social enterprises. She was also in charge of facilitating a discussion on shrimp welfare. 

The event was featured in the Vietnam Animal Husbandry magazine and Mekong ASEAN magazine.

Our pilot study in Andhra Pradesh is in full swing! Our recently hired data collector Mr. Satyanarayana Nakka is in charge of its operations. We expect this initial experiment to be valuable in establishing the correlation between higher welfare and biological and financial outcomes.

We've also just hired a field coordinator for the state of Andhra Pradesh. You will find more details on this newest addition to our team in our next newsletter!

Léa Guttmann was a professional actress and singer from 2018 to 2020.
She started volunteering with various organisations related to animal welfare and Effective Altruism in 2019.

She switched careers in January 2021 and worked as Campaign Manager for World Day for the End of Speciesism and World Day for the End of Fishing until October 2022.

She had been assisting Shrimp Welfare Project with some administrative tasks since May 2022 and has, since October 2022, a permanent role in the team.

Sasha Saugh has a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (University of Pretoria, South Africa), a Master’s in Aquatic Veterinary Studies (University of Stirling, Scotland) and is a WAVMA Certified Aquatic Veterinarian (CertAqV). 

She has public and private sector experience in aquaculture and is the founder of Aquaglobal Veterinary Consulting Pty. Ltd. 

She is passionate about aquatic animal health and welfare. One of her core beliefs is that “only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go”-T.S. Eliot.

Industry:

• Andrés, our CEO, attended the Global Shrimp Forum in Utrecht - 6-8th September

• Lien-Huong attended VietStock 2022 in Ho Chi Minh City - 12-14th October

Animal Welfare:

• For Asia Farm Animal Day, Andrés gave a presentation on Aquaculture and Lien-Huong moderated - 10th October

• Andrés gave a presentation entitled "Advocating for Aquatic Animals" at Animal & Vegan Advocacy (AVA) Summit - 22nd October

Effective Altruism:

• Andrés was invited to the 80K After Hours podcast to talk about Shrimp Welfare Project

• In July, Andrés gave a presentation on the topic "Starting a new organisation" at EAG San Francisco

• Lien-Huong attended EAGx Singapore - 2-3 September 2022

• Aaron, our CIO, attended EAG Washington DC - 23-25 September 2022

General Application (Volunteers) - If you think you'd be a good fit for Shrimp Welfare Project, please let us know about yourself and how you think you can help us help shrimps!

Let’s conclude this newsletter on a more personal note: we warmly congratulate Aaron, our CIO, who got married in September! We wish you both much happiness!