Fish Civil Rights

Paul B · Nov 21, 2016

As I was sitting here enjoying a tuna fish sandwich with a side of shrimp cocktail I was thinking about a thread I saw yesterday about how to euthanize a fish. Now I have been keeping fish since trillobites were the best clean up crew so I certainly don't want to see fish suffer, but I wonder how this tuna was euthanized or these shrimp.

Did they carefully put it in a small container, play soft music and dose it with clove oil? I really don't know. Those shrimp too. How did they meet their end?

Being of Italian decent, on Christmas it is our custom to have at least 7 different kinds of sea food for dinner. Last Christmas we had over twenty. Does that make us bad? Of course we never eat fish in view of my tank as that would be like canibalism and my fish may get the horrors.

My family owned a seafood market and on Fridays my Dad would bring me down to the Fulton Fish Market in lower Manhattan to buy the seafood for his store. It is amazing that those tons of fish that were uncerimonesly dumped on the sidewalk, then moved around with snow shovels. Were they all euthanized. I wonder where they got the time.

And how much clove oil were they using?

In those days there were also huge sea turtles still alive on their backs. Now I know they were just pets as no one I know would hurt a beautiful sea turtle.

Every day I feed my fish live blackworms, clams and mysis. I am not sure if each one of those worms has feelings or thinks about it's family just before it gets eaten.

The millions of mysis also. Do they have more civil rights than the new born brine shrimp I feed my mandarins. Is there a brine shrimp rights group? How about the goldfish we sometimes feed to our moray eels. Do they have less rights than say a lionfish or tang? What if we fed tiny tangs to large goldfish, would that be OK?

If we were to cycle a tank with a live fish or shrimp we would get yelled at from everyone, but it seems to be perfectly fine to cycle a tank with a fish or shrimp that suffocated on the deck of a ship. I wonder about that. I also wonder about the leather belt I am wearing. How did they remove that strip of skin from that cow without him noticing.

Many people dip corals in insecticide before they put them in their tanks to kill "pests". I am sure those "pests" think of us as pests and worse, murderers. If those "pests" were larger and cuter we would keep them as pets and try to kill the corals they were living on.

Just one of the things I think about.

jolt · Nov 21, 2016

You are not alone in such thoughts. But I have no answers

Antics · Nov 21, 2016

The calloused view is that we earn this discretion as the apex predator of the planet.

There is an argument to be made on how different ideas like civil rights or right/wrong and good/bad are inherently tied to higher intelligence and thus inapplicable to animals.

It's interesting because I had an experience over the weekend with someone wanting to buy a fish to put in their aquarium that was a couple hours old. Despite numerous warnings on the possible/likely death of the fish and repeated caution to be patient and wait a few weeks the individual decided on purchasing the fish and throwing it in the tank. I think I literally said at one point "there is a good chance the fish could die" and the response was "well I'll risk it and come get another if that happens". Hate to see stuff like this happen, but you put yourself in a difficult position because of the overall ignorance the general population has with regard to aquariums and their set up. If you don't make the sale they will leave and drive 5 miles down the road and buy it elsewhere.

Replace the word fish with cat or dog and its amazing how vehemently such a practice would be opposed. I imagine if a home had a cycle for cats so to speak there would be laws and regulations rather quickly on proper set up and care. Ornamental fish don't get this advantage unfortunately.

Rick.45cal · Nov 21, 2016

I'm not a fan of eating sea creatures, but I'll take my steak mid rare, thank you!

Nature is an unforgiving entity, we get to witness a small slice of it in a glass box. Denying prey items to creatures that need them is also cruel and unkind. I'm not sure there is an acceptable answer. I also think that by asking yourself (and us) this question shows that you aren't one of the "well It died, oh well I'll try 10 more crowd". (Which I knew you weren't anyway, but I'm just saying as an example).

I'm not even sure you can eat vegetables exclusively anymore, they are learning that plants are far more complex than we thought, they are after all living creatures themselves. THINK OF THE BABY VEGETABLES!!!! Plus animals have a means of removing nitrates and phosphates from themselves, plants don't do that very well. We all know those two things are BAAAAAAAAAD!

For some reason I am really getting hungry for some fried chicken right now... Anyone seen that yardbird around here?

(Everything has to eat... even me)

Paul B · Nov 21, 2016

No, I am not of the mindset that Oh well, it died so I will get another one. My fish die of old age but that was not always the case. I killed more fish than Starkist tuna but after a millennium I have learned a few things.
What many people fail to realize is that we kill virtually all of the fish that we buy. None of us keeps fish so we can raise them to release into the wild. The fish we keep were very happy living in the sea until someone yanked them out. We should not fault someone if they euthanize differently than someone else especially if our fish are not living long enough to die of old age.
The disease threads are mind boggling so we do kill an awful lot of fish, even though some of us euthanize with the so called proper procedures.
I don't feel bad if one of my fish die because I know he lived out his life most likely much longer than if he lived in the sea, where by the way, he would have been eventually eaten alive by something larger.
This thread was just something to give us something to think about and put all of this into perspective.
No fish were hurt or died while I was writing this thread.

Chrisfish · Nov 21, 2016

I've always said if I raised the animals I eat I would be a vegetarian. I don't raise them but I'm not a big meat eater. the fish I have in my tank would never be considered for a meal for anyone

.

Paul B · Nov 21, 2016

I think I spent too much time thinking. I think of too many things to many times when I should be thinking about other things. When I used to work, I always thought about going home, and when I was home, my thoughts would go to, OMG, soon I have to think about going to work.
I don't think to much about my fish as I know they will be fine. Every morning I put my finger on the glass to check the temperature and that lets me know they are good and will not think about me until it is time for them to start thinking of eating. They think I am concerned about them, but they are wrong. I am usually thinking about important things like Supermodels or inventing something.
I love whales but I wonder if they think about all those krill they kill with every bite. I am sure the krill think about that when they see a whale , although I am not sure how far a krill can see with those beatty little eyes.

mcarroll · Nov 22, 2016

Chrisfish said:
I've always said if I raised the animals I eat I would be a vegetarian. I don't raise them but I'm not a big meat eater. the fish I have in my tank would never be considered for a meal for anyone.

The intention not to do harm is a wonderful intention. An intention that many of us would do well to put more energy into, but....

I think it's a mistake to think of other life forms as "lesser" and therefor "ok to consume". I don't think that's the case at all.

We need to be OK with eating things that are alive. Period. Plants, animals and what's in-between.

There is no food that originated dead, in a package.

If you feel like plants are dumb and unfeeling so that's why they are OK to eat, you are wrong.

I mean, you are right they are OK to eat, but not because they are dumb and unfeeling! It's because they are yummy and nutritious!

I think it's interesting that all monkeys seem to eat fruit, bird eggs, leaves, bugs, dirt as well as larger animals in lots of cases....very few exceptions. Even where leaves may form the bulk of the diet there is no absolute vegetarianism.

Even the Leaf monkeys, which are actual ruminants with multi-chambered stomachs, still eat insects...and though I wasn't able to confirm it, I bet they still eat dirt too.

BTW, I had no idea there were primates with multi-chambered stomachs until reading tonight. Wow-cool!! But further proof that we are not vegetarians.....we just can act like vegetarians.

Rick.45cal · Nov 22, 2016

Little dirt never hurt!

Sabellafella · Nov 22, 2016

Well i feed my shrimps, shrimp and yes now that i think about it, i feel horrible!

mcarroll · Nov 22, 2016

I should also have said...

Another great post, Paul!

Elementalj · Nov 22, 2016

mcarroll said:
The intention not to do harm is a wonderful intention. An intention that many of us would do well to put more energy into, but....

I think it's a mistake to think of other life forms as "lesser" and therefor "ok to consume". I don't think that's the case at all.

We need to be OK with eating things that are alive. Period. Plants, animals and what's in-between.

There is no food that originated dead, in a package.

If you feel like plants are dumb and unfeeling so that's why they are OK to eat, you are wrong.

I mean, you are right they are OK to eat, but not because they are dumb and unfeeling! It's because they are yummy and nutritious!

I think it's interesting that all monkeys seem to eat fruit, bird eggs, leaves, bugs, dirt as well as larger animals in lots of cases....very few exceptions. Even where leaves may form the bulk of the diet there is no absolute vegetarianism.

Even the Leaf monkeys, which are actual ruminants with multi-chambered stomachs, still eat insects...and though I wasn't able to confirm it, I bet they still eat dirt too.

BTW, I had no idea there were primates with multi-chambered stomachs until reading tonight. Wow-cool!! But further proof that we are not vegetarians.....we just can act like vegetarians.

This nails it.

Anyone ever seen a deer eat birds? I HAVE! The issue at play here is anthropomorphism and nothing more.

That's an-thro-po-morph-ism. I.e. Making something that isn't human, human.

McMullen · Nov 22, 2016

GOD gave us dominion. Nuff said!

Debramb · Nov 23, 2016

Paul B said:
As I was sitting here enjoying a tuna fish sandwich with a side of shrimp cocktail I was thinking about a thread I saw yesterday about how to euthanize a fish. Now I have been keeping fish since trillobites were the best clean up crew so I certainly don't want to see fish suffer, but I wonder how this tuna was euthanized or these shrimp.

Did they carefully put it in a small container, play soft music and dose it with clove oil? I really don't know. Those shrimp too. How did they meet their end?

Being of Italian decent, on Christmas it is our custom to have at least 7 different kinds of sea food for dinner. Last Christmas we had over twenty. Does that make us bad? Of course we never eat fish in view of my tank as that would be like canibalism and my fish may get the horrors.

My family owned a seafood market and on Fridays my Dad would bring me down to the Fulton Fish Market in lower Manhattan to buy the seafood for his store. It is amazing that those tons of fish that were uncerimonesly dumped on the sidewalk, then moved around with snow shovels. Were they all euthanized. I wonder where they got the time.

And how much clove oil were they using?

In those days there were also huge sea turtles still alive on their backs. Now I know they were just pets as no one I know would hurt a beautiful sea turtle.

Every day I feed my fish live blackworms, clams and mysis. I am not sure if each one of those worms has feelings or thinks about it's family just before it gets eaten.

The millions of mysis also. Do they have more civil rights than the new born brine shrimp I feed my mandarins. Is there a brine shrimp rights group? How about the goldfish we sometimes feed to our moray eels. Do they have less rights than say a lionfish or tang? What if we fed tiny tangs to large goldfish, would that be OK?

If we were to cycle a tank with a live fish or shrimp we would get yelled at from everyone, but it seems to be perfectly fine to cycle a tank with a fish or shrimp that suffocated on the deck of a ship. I wonder about that. I also wonder about the leather belt I am wearing. How did they remove that strip of skin from that cow without him noticing.

Many people dip corals in insecticide before they put them in their tanks to kill "pests". I am sure those "pests" think of us as pests and worse, murderers. If those "pests" were larger and cuter we would keep them as pets and try to kill the corals they were living on.

Just one of the things I think about.

Hey Paul, agree 100%!!! Although I admit I did moan alittle when that Monster Fish guy had some village kid on his boat pull a beautiful tang out for his dinner lol

laga77 · Nov 23, 2016

There`s this thing called the food chain. Big animals eat the little animals. Conversely, after the big animals die, there are little animals that eat the bigs one. That`s how nature works. I do not feel bad about the animals that we, or the animals we keep, kill to consume. If I was the king of the world, I would make sure these animals did not suffer in their demise or even in their existence. Sadly, that is not the case and I have no control of these matters. I can only take care of the creatures under my control.