Humane euthanasia?

[Tired]

Oh. Possibly a chemical that provides a slow and easy death. Don’t know what that is rn.

Clove oil! Also there are some inhaled anesthetics you can get ahold of, but clove oil is probably the fastest, since you can get it at grocery stores. That's important if there's an immediate need.

Alternately, violent methods appear disturbing, but are humane if the brain is destroyed fast enough. Same principle as shooting an animal in the head when hunting; it can't suffer if it has no brain to suffer with. The main problem there is that the small size of our fish makes that a lot trickier to pull off, meaning it's often not a good option.

 

[Privateye]

Here's what the AVMA guidance says about MS-222



Whereas the blunt force trauma + exsanguination method involves the following:


After that, it's just a matter of sliding a knife behind the gill plate and wiggling it around a bit. The fish will then bleed out and die. This is the same method used every day by anglers the world over to euthanize their catch. That's how I learned to do it -- fishing, as a child. It's quick and easy, like humane euthanasia should be.

There are other non-chemical options, but decapitation requires pithing (spike through the brain -- harder to locate exact impact point for the novice), cervical transection (severed spinal cord, but that also then requires pithing), maceration (quickly chopping up, probably the easiest method for small fish under 2" or so and those with suitable home appliances)

MS-222 might be the "cleaner" option, but it seems like it's both harder to procure (compared to a blunt object and knife) and harder to properly administer unless one wants to just go all out and intentionally drastically overdose with the $40(ish) per gram MS-222.



On to specifically mentioned inhumane/unethical methods per the AVMA, we find some of the methods commonly discussed on message boards. These are the methods that there should be no tolerance of. Not the methods that feel "icky" or "cruel." Let's allow the medicine/science lead here.





Overall, I think we, as a community, need to develop a standard when it comes to fish euthanasia. One that's easy to perform, not cost or material prohibitive, and one that aligns with AVMA guidance. I'm hardly an expert, but the document that @Jay Hemdal provided earlier today offers some good places to start.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I agree with lethal head trauma. I was one of the first to suggest it in the other thread. I've literally hit so many fish in the head with a deadblow hammer that I got tennis elbow a double-digit number of times. I just also understand not wanting to smash your pet, and MS-222 is my recommendation when that's the case. I've also had a fellow biologist cut the head off a small fish with scissors for me. I didn't want to do that to my fish.

 

[Tired]

Decapitation isn't a good method; eels have been demonstrated to have signs of life for hours after being decapitated, and it likely applies to other fish. Cold-blooded animals take longer to die of decapitation than warm-blooded animals do. Turtles and snakes may remain able to bite for hours after being decapitated- not dead.

I agree that gory but humane methods shouldn't be a banned subject. What matters is whether the animal suffers, not whether we look at it and go "ew".

 

[gbru316]

Decapitation isn't a good method; eels have been demonstrated to have signs of life for hours after being decapitated, and it likely applies to other fish. Cold-blooded animals take longer to die of decapitation than warm-blooded animals do. Turtles and snakes may remain able to bite for hours after being decapitated- not dead.

Decapitation alone isn't a humane method. It requires pithing to be humane -- so that the brain is destroyed. In some cases, nervous system response might result in movement of the severed body but the fish is dead at that point. Sort of like how you can trigger responses with salt on octopus or frog legs on the dinner plate.

This probably wouldn't be a good general recommendation because pithing requires some level of accuracy with the strike, and the response of the severed body might unnecessarily traumatize the hobbyist.

 

[Tired]

A snake head biting when something touches it isn't quite the same as muscle twitching under stimulus. Mammals live a short amount of time after being decapitated, that much has been proven in several of the sorts of experiments that make you ask "did we REALLY need to know this thing quite this badly?".

Pithing is definitely not a good recommendation on small fish, between the difficulty of hitting the brain right and the difficulty of holding the fish in the first place. The concept does probably bear mentioning, though, as it's from the other school of humane euthanasia. One school deals in chemically rendering the animal unconscious with as little stress as possible, the other deals in making it immediately incapable of feeling any sort of suffering at all.

Is it still called pithing if you've entirely crushed the skull? I've done that with lizards and snakes that were badly injured by cats. It's the best method I'm aware of; put them on a flat, hard surface like a sidewalk, and crush the head with a brick. Gruesome, but whatever it is stops suffering immediately. Useful to know if you have a reptile to euthanize, though much emotionally harder with a pet than with a wild animal you're trying to put out of its misery.

 

[PeterEde]

There is evidence to suggest decapitation does not kill instantly nor humanely. A brain still functions for minutes without blood or oxygen.

Clove oil is a numbing oil. Just as human euthanasia uses morphine over dose or other numbing drugs clove oil seems very humane.

Mice for snake food is euthanised using CO2.

 

[gbru316]

There is evidence to suggest decapitation does not kill instantly nor humanely. A brain still functions for minutes without blood or oxygen.

That's why AVMA says decapitation must be used with pithing in order to be considered humane. A brain can't function with a spike through it.

 

[Spare time]

Is slicing up corals humane? I'm sure it causes stress.

Pain and stress are very different. Same goes for suffering vs pain vs stress. It is reasonable to claim stress is present, but it would be hard to reasonable establish that they feel pain. BUT, humans often define pain in the mechanism we feel it and ignore that other organisms that have a different mechanism for the same outcome. In this case, I lean heavily towards the coral does not feel pain as I define pain as the active desire to remove oneself from a state of being that is likely harmful or can do harm. In my opinion, the is a spectrum. Being in said adverse state is different depending on how the body is reacting. Its argubale to say pain in organisms with emotions is different than pain in organisms without emotions. Suffering is the awareness that one is in pain, which is very different. Btw this is a huge debate in academia

 

[Spare time]

I would say follow what many Japanese fishers do. Vox has a great video on this (i think it was about the fishy taste that a lot of fish have when consumed). However, I only see this as an option for a fish in extreme stress and with a guaranteed death no matter what.

 

[Tired]

Cutting up corals is stressful for the coral, but, as far as we can tell, corals lack the ability to feel pain. They can retreat from something that damages them, but, without a brain to feel distress, that seems to just be a reflexive action. Like some plants have when chewed by caterpillars.

 

[Spare time]

Cutting up corals is stressful for the coral, but, as far as we can tell, corals lack the ability to feel pain. They can retreat from something that damages them, but, without a brain to feel distress, that seems to just be a reflexive action. Like some plants have when chewed by caterpillars.

The issue with saying you need a brain to feel pain is thag it's human centric. It is likely possible to have the same outcome via a different mechanism. I agree that corals probably don't feel pain, but it depends on how you define pain.

 

[gbru316]

I would say follow what many Japanese fishers do. Vox has a great video on this (i think it was about the fishy taste that a lot of fish have when consumed). However, I only see this as an option for a fish in extreme stress and with a guaranteed death no matter what.

Ike-Jime, or pithing. It's been mentioned several times. It would be difficult for a novice to be able to perform effectively.

 

[PeterEde]

Cutting up corals is stressful for the coral, but, as far as we can tell, corals lack the ability to feel pain. They can retreat from something that damages them, but, without a brain to feel distress, that seems to just be a reflexive action. Like some plants have when chewed by caterpillars.

Can we not assume if a coral retracts due to sudden change in PH/ALK that this can not be due to pain? Of course it's up for debate.

 

[Tired]

Pain is a very specific thing, that we currently have no evidence for corals experiencing. We don't know if they actually feel distress the way we understand it, or if it's purely mechanical. A smoke alarm 'screams' when it detects smoke, and a Roomba avoids going off of cliffs, but neither of those is in pain, suffering, or afraid. It's mechanical response to stimulus, programmed in. There's no way to tell whether corals are doing anything beyond that.

We do know that fish feel pain, or at least they sure as heck seem like they feel pain. Multiple studies have shown the sorts of responses we'd expect to be related to pain. It's not a surprise if you watch fish, either- they act differently when badly injured, in ways that are bad for their survival due to potentially attracting attention from predators.