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Hey there,
We hope you’re doing well! The main theme this time is something that we don’t usually talk about in newsletters, but is nevertheless crucial for our impact: For those who are able, we’d like to ask you to consider supporting FWI’s work.
We recently held our annual strategy retreat in India, where we set what we believe are ambitious yet realistic plans for reducing farmed fish suffering in 2024 and beyond. You can read more about them in our blog, but broadly these plans involve expanding our farmer program to 100 new farms, running multiple welfare studies in the field, and helping an additional 1 million fishes.
However, this work will not be possible without additional funding, and, as we still have to raise the majority of our planned 2024 budget, now is a particularly useful time to donate.
You can learn more about the finer details of the value of a donation to FWI at our newly-updated donation page. In it, we tackle some of the usual questions, such as “How does FWI spend its money?” and “How cost effective is a donation to FWI?” We also answer some more unorthodox questions, such as “What are the best arguments against donating to FWI?”
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This newsletter also includes discussions on our China work, FWI’s status as an ACE-recommended charity, our new operations staff member, and more!
Whether or not that’s through supporting Fish Welfare Initiative’s work, thank you for all the ways you do good in the world.
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Have a great weekend,
Haven King-Nobles
Executive Director
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Our Key Goals for 2024
In 2024, our goals span a few different categories:
- R&D: Testing new theories of change for helping fish in India
- Direct farmer implementation: Expanding and improving our farmer work
- Policy and stakeholder advocacy: Building relationships and advocate for policies that advance fish welfare
We've highlighted some of the key goals here in the infographic below:
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Strategy Updates: Broadening our Research in India
We recently posted about strategy updates we are making to our program in India. These include:
- Broadened R&D mandate: We are broadening the mandate of our R&D work to look into alternative programs, not just alternative welfare improvements for our current farmer program. We are also investing more heavily in R&D than before.
- Greater emphasis on innovation in farmer program: Our farmer program (the ARA) will place greater emphasis on innovating novel strategies.
Why are we making these changes? Broadly, because we see various limitations with our current farmer program for helping fishes in India—one example of this is the fact that for every 100 visits made, only one results in significant impact.
We hope and intend that our increased financial and staff investment in R&D today will lead to more impactful interventions for fishes tomorrow.
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Most of FWI’s team at a recent retreat in Chirala, Andhra Pradesh, India.
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An Update on Our China Work
As discussed in our last newsletter, we've made important strides in promoting fish welfare in China over recent years. However, while significant opportunities remain, we have decided to put our China programming on pause right now. Our reasoning here is that we do not currently feel that we have sufficient staffing or strategic guidance to run this program to the level we want.
We remain committed to advancing fish welfare in China, and are thus not indefinitely stopping our program. We are currently considering our next steps, which include the potential hiring of a managing director-level role in the first half of 2024. If you are interested in such a position, or know someone who might be, we encourage you to contact us.
If you have further questions about this decision or our future plans in China, feel free to respond to this email. You can also learn more in our recent post:
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FWI is an ACE-recommended charity
FWI is honored to be listed as an Animal Charity Evaluators (ACE) recommended charity! This means that, alongside ten other organizations, FWI was recommended as one of the organizations where your money goes the furthest towards helping animals. And if you’re interested in learning more in-depth about FWI’s programs, we believe ACE’s in-depth evaluation is one of the best places to go to learn about them.
However, it’s worth noting that the ACE recommendation is just a rollover from last year (ACE recommendations last for two years). FWI plans to undergo re-evaluation next year.
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New Team Member: Alethea Cendaña
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Althy, a seasoned Effective Altruism practitioner, joins us from the Philippines as our new Operations Associate. She studied chemical engineering while developing a passion for farmed animal welfare and EA community building. We're excited that her distinctive abilities and dedication to fish welfare will continue improving FWI's internal operations—welcome, Althy!
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Into the Weeds: A Look at FWI’s Internal Goal-setting and Budgets
Did you know that FWI publicly publishes all its annual budgets and goals, along with its real-time progress towards them?
For instance, you can see our 2023 budget and goals, though noting that, in part due to unrealistic planning, our 2023 goal attainment was less than we wanted. You can also see what we’re planning for 2024 with its budget and goals.
We think this is especially important during this fundraising season of the year, as these documents can be useful for informing donors about how organizations are spending their money.
For more information, see our Transparency Page.
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Job Openings
- We’re hiring Indian nationals to join us in Andhra Pradesh as Field Managers. This role will lead our field operations, build and maintain farmer relationships, execute field research, and more. Deadline: rolling.
- The Humane League is hiring for a Director of Finance in the US. Deadline: December 19, 2023.
- Farmed Animal Funders is seeking a Director of Programs to work remotely. Deadline: December 08, 2023.
- Shrimp Welfare Initiative is looking for new members to join their Board of Directors. Deadline: rolling.
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Other News in Fish Welfare
- A Compassion in World Farming investigation exposed shockingly poor welfare conditions in European fish farms.
- A parvovirus that affects farmed tilapia has been reported for the first time in India.
- Thousands of farmed salmon escaped a farm in Iceland, endangering their wild counterparts.
- Pumping cold water into rivers helps wild fishes survive high temperatures.
- A cichlid species in Lake Tanganyika and its morbid predilection for eating the scales off other live fishes.
- The Amazon River is home to a newly discovered species of vibrantly colored fishes.
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Know of other upcoming events or interesting news? Feel free to send them over, and we’ll include them next time!
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An electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) capable of producing jolts of electricity to stun prey and fend off predators. Credit: Steven G. Johnson/Wikimedia Commons
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Electric eels, despite the name, are actually fishes and not true eels. Known scientifically as Electrophorus electricus, these charged swimmers are carnivorous and belong to the knife fish family. The electricity these fishes produce can be as high as 860 volts! Not only is this enough power to run household appliances, but any prey animals targeted by an electric eel are immediately stunned and unable to defend themselves or escape.
More interestingly (or shockingly), researchers have found that this energy naturally produced by electric eels can mutate nearby fishes. That is, electric eels possess the ability to bring about genetic modifications in other fishes in a process inherent to their wild existence—and one we are only just beginning to understand. For more on this, check out the study from Nagoya University and Kyoto University, Japan.
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