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World Aquatic Animal Day

World Aquatic Animal Day is an annual day dedicated to aquatic animals. The event is being launched for the first time on April 3, 2020, and is a project of the Aquatic Animal Law Initiative and the Animal Law Clinic at Lewis & Clark Law School, as part of the Center for Animal Law Studies. Each year, we intend to raise global awareness about these often forgotten nonhuman animals.

Aquatic animals play a critical role in our societies and ecosystems. They are important not only as a group, but also as valuable and exciting individuals with intrinsic worth. By “aquatic animals”, we mean not only fish, but also a myriad of other animals that live in water for most of their life: amphibians, marine mammals, crustaceans, reptiles, molluscs, aquatic birds, aquatic insects and even animals such as starfish and corals. Despite this, aquatic animals are widely used and abused around the world and they face a multitude of different threats.

There is an urgent need to give aquatic animals the proper consideration they deserve. Through law, policy, education, advocacy and good stewardship of the earth, our efforts to raise awareness of the plight of aquatic animals must rise to meet the immense challenges they now face. We must also consider our interactions with aquatic animals, our treatment of them, and the often-devastating impacts we are having on them and their habitats.

On April 3rd each year, please join us in celebrating these creatures and calling for action to protect aquatic animals through education, law, policy, outreach and other avenues. With a different focus each year, we will, together, highlight these issues and elevate their status.

The focus for 2020 World Aquatic Animal Day is on aquaculture. Aquaculture essentially refers to agriculture (whether plant or animal-based) in marine and/or freshwater environments.