THANK YOU! Your commitment has fuelled multiple achievements for decapod animals this year. Through donations, petitions and online actions, you have been the driving force of our campaigns. Propelling our investigations, research, legislative advice, corporate engagements and public engagements; impacting millions of unprotected and neglectful animals. Your resilience assisting us in confronting the seafood industry and challenging political apathy is inspiring. Almost 7,000 of you took action for decapod crustaceans this year. With you, anything is possible.
2024 has been a busy year for us, but a few key highlights stick out for me:
In January we published our second benchmark report detailing and comparing decapod welfare policies of retailers, processors and producers in the UK seafood industry, and - for the first time ever - company scores and rankings were revealed. From capture methods to slaughter, The Snapshot sheds light on both companies' current standards and their targets for improvement, and now consumers can check how their favourite supermarket is performing on decapod welfare. The production of the grading of welfare-led food choices for consumers to follow and guide sales.
Our corporate engagement work continued, resulting in the world’s first retailer produced decapod specific welfare policy.
In April we launched our “ban live sales” campaign, to urge the major UK supermarkets to commit to ban this practice in their store policies – only two are yet to make this public commitment.
Provision of key research publications to government departments, to support and inform their decision making. These included reports such as Regulation vs Legislation, Code of Practice Review, The Sea to Plate Journey. (Read all our reports here.)
We also provided investigative and science research to the Home Office and London School of Economics investigating use of decapods in science and to Defra regarding enforcement of current welfare legislation resulting in ongoing review of sales and killing legislation.
Our Crustacean Industry Welfare Hub continues to grow in membership and proved to be an excellent tool for engagement with seafood industry professionals and policy makers with many attending our regular webinars on key topics on crustacean welfare. This is the only global website for industry and provides information and resources to help seafood companies improve welfare standards for decapod crustaceans in their supply chain.
We worked hard during the UK General Election period to secure commitments to promote decapod welfare. A huge 222 candidates pledged to support our key welfare asks, including 12 who got elected.
Our website got a revamp, with a new design and lots of new content – including a brand-new section for our younger audience. Keep your eyes out for more details coming soon, and we will be introducing our very own crustacean mascot in the new year!
We continued to spread the message of crustacean welfare by attending and presenting at conferences, meeting and events, and we even we even published our very first Crustacean Compassion calendar. This featured fantastic art from talented artists from all over the world. Numbers are limited so if you would like one, get your skates on and visit our website before they are all gone.
At Crustacean Compassion, our mission is to ensure the humane treatment and welfare of decapod crustaceans. As we enter 2025, we will begin a new strategic phase. We will continue our collective mission but also consider how we help wild animals through ocean health and One Health. We hope you will see this as a much needed ‘next step’ and be part of the journey. There will be much to update you on, some snippets and updates are already on our new website, so please take a moment to have a look. But for now I just want to thank you, nothing could be done without your compassion and efforts.
I wish you all a peaceful and joy filled 2025.
Dr Ben Sturgeon
CEO Crustacean Compassion