Over 100 billion farmed fish are slaughtered each year. At Coefficient Giving, where I (Michelle Lavery) work as a Senior Program Associate, we estimate that only ~0.5% of them are reliably stunned before slaughter.

For the more than a trillion wild-caught fish killed annually, conditions are even worse: most are left to suffocate slowly in air or in low-oxygen water, a process that can take minutes to hours.

Though fish slaughter represents only a few hours in an animal's life, we believe the pain it causes is excruciating — especially when done poorly, which is most of the time. This problem is both urgent and tractable: the suffering is immense, the moment of slaughter is discrete and identifiable, and people are genuinely horrified when they learn about current practices. So why hasn't it been solved? The answer lies in a combination of technical complexity, limited competition in the equipment market, and a critical skills gap between the biologists who study the problem and the engineers who could solve it.

That's why we're launching this RFP: to bridge that gap and catalyze the engineering innovation this problem demands.

Why this is hard

If you've never thought about how fish [...]

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Outline:

(01:24) Why this is hard

(03:43) Who/what were looking for

(04:57) How to apply

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.