On 17th July 2026, covert footage was filmed by Animal Equality UK of the Tiffany II, a vessel used to kill trout for Scottish farmed fish producer Kames, revealing what the animal rights group describes as animal welfare abuses. The organisation said the recording catalogued trouts being crowded and delayed before slaughter, as well as instances where they were not stunned properly, left too long before stunning and bleeding, and, in at least one case, neither stunned nor bled.
Kames, an RSPCA Assured business, is understood to supply UK supermarkets including Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and Tesco, and has been farming fishes on the west coast of Scotland for 54 years.
Abigail Penny, executive director of Animal Equality UK, told The Grocer, “Farmed fish suffer enormously in their final moments of life.” She continued, “Kames touts itself as a small-scale, artisanal, family-run business, but consumers should be under no illusion – like every other form of factory farming, this is industrialised suffering.”
Penny has called on the Scottish government to introduce species-specific slaughter legislation, warning that without it, “millions of farmed fish remain at real risk of extreme, prolonged suffering before they die.” She added, “The government boasts about having introduced guidance, but guidance alone simply does not cut it.”
An RSPCA Assured spokesperson said the welfare of farmed animals was its “absolute priority” but that its enquiry was ongoing and that it was “unable to comment further at this time”.
The UK aquaculture industry has been scrutinised from other angles. Recently, a new study reported by Sentient Media has found that farmed salmons from Scotland exported to the US may be treated with antibiotics not approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and that these compounds are rarely tested for once shipments arrive in the country.
