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The welfare of fishes and aquatic invertebrates is important, and several jurisdictions have included these taxa under welfare regulation in recent years. Regulation of welfare requires use of scientifically validated welfare criteria. This is why applying Mertonian skepticism toward claims for sentience and pain in fishes and aquatic invertebrates is scientifically sound and prudent, particularly when those claims are used to justify legislation regulating the welfare of these taxa. Enacting welfare legislation for these taxa without strong scientific evidence is a societal and political choice that risks creating scientific and interpretational problems as well as major policy challenges, including the potential to generate significant unintended consequences. In contrast, a more rigorous science-based approach to the welfare of aquatic organisms that is based on verified, validated and measurable endpoints is more likely to result in "win-win" scenarios that minimize the risk of unintended negative impacts for all stakeholders, including fish and aquatic invertebrates. The authors identify as supporters of animal welfare, and emphasize that this issue is not about choosing between welfare and no welfare for fish and aquatic invertebrates, but rather to ensure that important decisions about their welfare are based on scientifically robust evidence. These ten reasons are delivered in the spirit of organized skepticism to orient legislators, decision makers and the scientific community, and alert them to the need to maintain a high scientific evidential bar for any operational welfare indicators used for aquatic animals, particularly those mandated by legislation. Moving forward, maintaining the highest scientific standards is vitally important, in order to protect not only aquatic animal welfare, but also global food security and the welfare of humans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By combining labor, immigration, and community approaches, Beik has written an informative account of the efforts of immigrant bituminous coal miners to organize a union in Windber, Pennsylvania. As the [...]

We revisit the evidence attributing sentience-pain-suffering to aquatic animals. The objective is to inform readers of the current state of affairs, to direct attention to where research is needed, and to identify "wicked" questions that are difficult to resolve unequivocally. By separating the ethical from the scientific debate, applying organized skepticism to the latter, and taking a pragmatic approach that does not depend on resolving the "wicked" questions, we hope to focus and strengthen research on aquatic animal welfare. A second but closely-related objective is to briefly summarize the research used to support the regulations governing the welfare of aquatic animals, particularly its limitations. If you interact with aquatic animals, these regulations already affect you. If the regulatory environment continues on its current trajectory (adding more aquatic animal taxa to those already regulated), activity in some sectors could be severely restricted, even banned. There are surely some lively debates and tough choices ahead. In the end, extending legal protection to aquatic animals is a societal choice, but that choice should not be ascribed to strong support from a body of research that does not yet exist, and may never exist, and the consequences of making that decision must be carefully weighed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]