Are the fish in our hobby domesticated? Can you "domesticate" a fish? A recent trending thread on the ethics of QT got me thinking about the ethics of animal keeping in general. Nobody questions whether keeping a dog or cat is unethical because they are domesticated animals. But what about our fish?
Are aquarium fish domesticated?
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R0L0
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Many of our fish in our hobby have been bred in captivity to live in fish tanks their whole life. Many have also been bred from different fish to create new varieties in the same way that dogs were. Whether it is actual domestic animals or not is debatable. IMO I belive that at the point wr are at they should be considered domesticated.
Randy Holmes-Farley
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IMO, it's not the word you refer to them as that determines the ethics, but whether you provide them a life as happy as they would otherwise have.
My dog was a stray before I got it. Clearly, it is happier with us than away or else it would try to run away. It doesn't. It knows the choice and has chosen.
Harder to know with fish, of course, but it certainly depends on the fish and the environment.
My ocellaris clowns in my gigantea anemone never strayed more than a few inches from it. If they wanted out, I think they would be looking around for a way out.
A larger fish swimming back and forth is a different story.
My dog was a stray before I got it. Clearly, it is happier with us than away or else it would try to run away. It doesn't. It knows the choice and has chosen.
Harder to know with fish, of course, but it certainly depends on the fish and the environment.
My ocellaris clowns in my gigantea anemone never strayed more than a few inches from it. If they wanted out, I think they would be looking around for a way out.
A larger fish swimming back and forth is a different story.
fish farmer
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Once you start breeding them for certain traits, better feeding response, better life in captivity...then yes they are on the path to domestication.
Considering many of our fish are wild collected, you could say if they are collected very young and lived most of their life in captivity then they would be considered captive raised.
The real answer would be take the domesticated clownfish, stock them back in the wild, do they successfully survive and repopulate and not cause some bad domesticated genes to depress wild populations?
Considering many of our fish are wild collected, you could say if they are collected very young and lived most of their life in captivity then they would be considered captive raised.
The real answer would be take the domesticated clownfish, stock them back in the wild, do they successfully survive and repopulate and not cause some bad domesticated genes to depress wild populations?
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Good question. It matters on what definition you use. For me, a domestic animal is one that is bred in captivity, with marked differences from the wild phenotype, for the purpose of food, work or as a pet. That means that a wild caught fish is not domesticated. However, there is also a length of time/number of generations from wild that comes into play and that is subjective. A f1 cichlid is not domesticated.
In my work, I've only heard of goldfish and koi being called domestic fish. An argument could be made however, to include other aquarium fish - angelfish, etc. that have been in captivity for 200 years or so. Would clownfish be considered domesticated after only 50 years in culture? I would say not because many breeders augment with wild stock along the way. There are legal definitions for "domestic animal" the USDA uses, but it can also mean any animal originated from the US.
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Cell
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How does one know if the life you are providing is better than they otherwise would have? The dog is easy because it's domesticated and I think instinctually relies on humans at this point. If an animal is content with it's current state, does that mean it's adequate or could not be improved?
fish farmer
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Here's something to ponder.
Do your fish successfully find mates, spawn and contribute their genes to the future population? Would that be considered an improvement to the life of the fish?
Lyss
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To me the answer is no. Captive bred fish closer but not, wild caught obviously not. Koi and goldfish closest to being able to call an aquarium fish domesticated, and they are referred to as domestic.
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Randy Holmes-Farley
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Jay Hemdal
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I teach aquarium ethics in a college course. I know just enough about it to know that everyone can have a different "line in the sand" on this one. From the standpoint of a single living creature, the ethics of keeping it captive is no different if the animal is wild, captive raised, or domestic. As a group, however, ecological concerns enter into it, and then, keeping a domestic fish is more ethical than one taken from the wild. I do not see any difference between keeping a captive raised fish and a domesticated fish in that regard - neither was taken from the wild.
Jay
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The fish are staring at me with hungry eyes.
and I see no difference when a human takes a fish from the wild in place of any other predator.
If we are taking so many that we are affecting a species ability to survive or the ability of other species that rely on that species to exist that is another discussion.
If we are taking so many that we are affecting a species ability to survive or the ability of other species that rely on that species to exist that is another discussion.
