Is fish keeping ethical?

[samnaz]

+1000 yes

 

[Thales]

Here's an interesting philosophical discussion between Richard Ross and Nathan Hill on the topic of ethics and marine aquaria. It's a long read, but it's a really good discussion. There aren't many prescriptions, but there are very many questions asked from each author's point of view, which really gets you thinking.

Thanks for the kind words.
Here is a link to the first ethics article I wrote:
http://packedhead.net/2013/skeptical-reefkeeping-vii-a-look-at-ethics/
I think it might be the thing I have published for which I am most proud.
It has this graphic - I giggled the whole time I was making it which makes me giggle.

I have the video lined up to listen to on the way to work in the morning.
I love the smell of ethics in the morning.

 

[av8soulfly]

If one day someone were to declare all fish keeping unethical, would we all catch our fish, send them back to their wild environment, drain our tanks and chuck them in the landfill? I seriously doubt it.
This hobby is a mutual symbiotic relationship; that is we get enjoyment from keeping the critters alive and healthy, and the critters are pretty happy in their artificial homes (if we do our part as correctly as possible). I'm going to keep on keeping critters in my tanks and the ethical thing to do is to make the critters feel as comfortable as possible for as long as possible.
It's a pretty good feeling to have my fish eating from my hand. My Tomini Tang even kisses my fingers...yup, it's happy.

 

[Jimmyneptune]

Is Fish Keeping Ethical?

First off we need to define what Ethics is?

Can I be arrested for being unethical? No

Something is either legal or illegal, their is no middle ground. Ethics is a state of mind.

If I chose to keep fish and corals then it is my responsibility to properly care for them, that said if I want to treat the creatures under my care poorly then who will stop me? What jurisdiction will attempt to prosecute me? It simply is not going to happen.

In many Asian countries domestic dogs and cats are on the menu at many restaurants, in their society that is acceptable, yet in the western world that would be considered a terrible crime. I have watched first hand in several middle-eastern countries the sale of daughters on their 14th birthday for as little a 6 goats, which is and has been considered normal for over 3,000 years.

Legal, illegal, ethical or unethical all depends on where you are standing at the moment and at what moment in time.

Before anyone anywhere accuses someone of unethical anything they first need to define what is ethics otherwise it is simply a misused word of no real value.

What is ethical?
A matter of opinion.
Do I care for my fish? Yes.
Do I have some aquatic life for 10 + years healthy, well adjusted to my reef? Yes.
Do I enjoy my aquatic life and try to make it the "best" I can? Yes

Maybe its unethical for every household in the world to not have a reef aquarium in their home.

 

[ArowanaLover1902]

An animal has a few different basic needs (they are debatable, the following are my personal choices based on logic)
-Space (to gather food)
-Food (and water)
-Shelter
-Water Quality (aquaria only)
-Air
-(by definition of the purpose of an animal’s life [to spread genes]) sex

Does my fish tank provide those?
-Space (Yes, I believe so, I keep small fish, each has a ton of room and certainly enough to move around and harvest food)
-Food (Yes, ample food is provided and specialty food is also available)
-Water Quality (Yes, my sps are even thanking me for it)
-Air (Obviously, H20 and all that)
-Sex (While my aquaria falls short in this regard, as I don’t have any pairs, many aquaria provide for this, and given that many fish are aquacultured these days, their genes are widespread anyways, their siblings will pass it on even if the individual can’t).

I believe fish keeping, as well as animal keeping in general to be ethical. However, the exceptions of animal abuse and etc are obviously different.

 

[biophilia]

Is it ethically justifiable to keep fish in a tank for pleasure or entertainment alone? Probably not. That being said, we routinely condemn far more sensitive species to far worse fates for equally trivial reasons. If the concern is capacity to suffer, keeping bivalves and sponges is possibly a good place to draw the line as Peter Singer would argue...

That being said, it's hard to justify many of the things we do ethically-speaking and it's easy to drive yourself crazy attempting to do so. I get a great deal of enjoyment out of keeping marine fish so I try to make sure that they have a relatively stress-free environment to call home -- even if it is a bit cramped. I like to think that caring for reef tanks has taught me some valuable lessons about the complexity and fragility of natural systems, though I can't say I wouldn't have learned those same lessons without having a tank. To each their own.

 

[Ash321]

Enjoyed this video! Shared on the uk marine facebook page.

And as far as is keeping fish ethical hmm iv worked in fish shops for many years. And as a general answer no not at all! I would say marine fishkeeping is alot better than the freshwater side! Iv open boxes of fish from congo and the bags are covered in blood and we where told not to complain due to the fact the children collect the fish!

I think education is the key to protecting the hobby and not keeping anything with a low survial rate.

Also frag swapping as much as possible and exploring the companys growing there frags not directly harvesting from the sea!

 

[jeffrey holloway]

Are Zoos ethical? What about Sea World? Just asking.

 

[hart24601]

With human overpopulation as the biggest threat to the world I think a solid argument that even existing as a human being is unethical. For sure having children is as no matter what you teach them they will consume resources.

It just depends how far you want to take things.

 

[Prestigereef]

I fail to see the point of this discussion when there are fishing ships that catch and process more fish in one net haul in weight than possibly all the aquarium kept Fish in the entire world. Where is the concern for those fish and who has stopped eating fish sandwiches or fish sticks?

I'm a vegetarian

 

[Thales]

I fail to see the point of this discussion when there are fishing ships that catch and process more fish in one net haul in weight than possibly all the aquarium kept Fish in the entire world. Where is the concern for those fish and who has stopped eating fish sandwiches or fish sticks?

Seems to be two different topics, and I am not sure that fish keepers need to bear the weight of what fish eaters are doing.

 

[Tiger-Paws]

Seems to be two different topics, and I am not sure that fish keepers need to bear the weight of what fish eaters are doing.

"Fish Eaters". I resemble that remark. [emoji95]

 

[Thales]

One of the moderators suggested I share some of my old videos with you all...

This is a good place to start... is fishkeeping ethical?

Nice vid. Thanks for posting! More ethics!


I also think an important part of the discussion of the ethics is an exploration of the resources used in the endeavor. Electricity, shipping costs, fuel, plastic, water, disposal of water, disposal of chemicals were discussed in terms of monetary and time cost, but not in terms of ethical or sustainable cost. The amount of those resources used by aquarists can be pretty massive, and should factor into ethical. In that light, riding a bicycle for pleasure seems more ethical than riding a motorcycle for pleasure as the bicycle uses way fewer resources than the motorcycle, and produces much less waste and pollution.
I think the resource idea also needs to be taken into account regarding captive breeding of fishes, and culture of coral. Is it more ethical and sustainable to take animals out of their natural habitat and transport them around the world and use a lot of resources keeping them alive to breed or is it more ethical and sustainable to culture those animals 'at the source' where the use of resources is less drastic because they are more readily available?

The idea that 95% of the fish collected for the trade are juveniles seems off to me - do you have a source for that number?

Thanks!

Rich

 

[Thales]

One of the themes in this thread is, to paraphrase, the idea that 'we take care of our animals, so it is ethical'. While that is often true for individuals, it seems to wash away when we look at the larger hobby. It seems most aquarists are not on the forums or attending conferences or in clubs (I have some numbers on this in an article somewhere), and even worse, most are only in the hobby for 18 months or less (according to the data that we do have), and are not the same 'caliber' of keeper as many of those that are on the forums etc. Are these people burning through animals? Hard to tell, but the entire impact of the hobby/industry should be in our minds in a discussion of ethics. Also to be considered is the chain of custody - it seems many animals suffer, and may die, on the way to our tanks and that those metrics need to be taken into consideration in a discussion of ethics.
I think, to truly cover our ethical *****, that we need to be sure that the entire hobby/industry/trade needs to be as transparent and sustainable as possible, so that when anti trade people pounce we can support what we are doing with data that shows that what we are involved with is as ethical as possible, and so we can know what really are the most ethical and sustainable choices around the hobby.

 

[Tiger-Paws]

Thales/Rich,

You (and others) speak of "Ethics" but my question is "What exactly is Ethics"?

For 35 years, I served and fought for this country, to that end we (the Military) used billions upon billions of gallons of fossil fuels, hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, left an estimated 600 to 1,000 tons of depleted Uranium (some with a 700 million year half life) on various battlefields, we sprayed more than 13 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam and on and on.

Not to mention the trash, burn pits, mangled bodies and an uncountable number of innocent people killed, all in the name of the America people.

Ethics regarding fish and coral keeping? What about the ethics of a never ending War Machine, the quest for never ending War Profiteering by global companies.

In my humble opinion ethics is nothing more than a state of mind and varies from person to person therefor it is a meaningless term.

 

[BantyRooster97]

Its been said already but keeping fish is like keeping any other pet or raising any kind of livestock. So, if you are against it better turn vegan & let rover run free.

 

[Thales]

Thales/Rich,

You (and others) speak of "Ethics" but my question is "What exactly is Ethics"?

Moral principals that govern activity.
"Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, involves exploring concepts of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ conduct, but ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ mean different things to different people. Some people feel that there are absolute ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ that are unchangeable and apply equally to everyone independent of what an individual might think, while others feel that there are ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ that are not absolute and can change over time or when new information becomes available. Sam Harris moves at a different angle describing a ‘moral landscape’ that may have many peaks corresponding to different ‘rights’ and many valleys corresponding to different ‘wrongs’ with none of the ‘rights’ or ‘wrongs’ being necessarily better or more absolute than the others, just different. Philosophers have talked and debated for thousands of years and written millions of words about this kind of stuff, so, for the purposes of this article, lets consider a more practical approach and build on the idea that ethics is, in general, concerned with how creatures should be treated in regards to minimizing their suffering and maximizing their well being."

For 35 years, I served and fought for this country, to that end we (the Military) used billions upon billions of gallons of fossil fuels, hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, left an estimated 600 to 1,000 tons of depleted Uranium (some with a 700 million year half life) on various battlefields, we sprayed more than 13 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam and on and on.

Not to mention the trash, burn pits, mangled bodies and an uncountable number of innocent people killed, all in the name of the America people.

Ethics regarding fish and coral keeping? What about the ethics of a never ending War Machine, the quest for never ending War Profiteering by global companies.

Those are all ethical considerations. I think it is important to look at the larger picture and the smaller picture, as they are both instructive.

In my humble opinion ethics is nothing more than a state of mind and varies from person to person therefor it is a meaningless term.

Kind of. Though what particular ethics are is 'soft', the discussion around individual and group moral principal and decision making is often useful and instructive.

 

[Thales]

Its been said already but keeping fish is like keeping any other pet or raising any kind of livestock. So, if you are against it better turn vegan & let rover run free.

Fish keeping is for pleasure, and livestock is for utility, so it is often argued that one is necessary and the other isn't. Consistency in ethics is nice, but it seems that since people don't talk/think about ethics so much it is difficult to expect people to be consistent across the board.

 

[Tony Thompson]

Thales/Rich,

You (and others) speak of "Ethics" but my question is "What exactly is Ethics"?

For 35 years, I served and fought for this country, to that end we (the Military) used billions upon billions of gallons of fossil fuels, hundreds of millions of rounds of ammunition, left an estimated 600 to 1,000 tons of depleted Uranium (some with a 700 million year half life) on various battlefields, we sprayed more than 13 million gallons of Agent Orange in Vietnam and on and on.

Not to mention the trash, burn pits, mangled bodies and an uncountable number of innocent people killed, all in the name of the America people.

Ethics regarding fish and coral keeping? What about the ethics of a never ending War Machine, the quest for never ending War Profiteering by global companies.

In my humble opinion ethics is nothing more than a state of mind and varies from person to person therefor it is a meaningless term.

I apologise for being off topic but I felt compelled to reply. Having served myself alongside your fellow compatriots. Your service is deeply appreciated, especially in the UK. We owe all our allies a great debt of gratitude. Whenever I hear of ethics my mind turns to exactly the points you made. I believe it is an unfortunate, all to common, reaction to the experience of those that have served.

I believe there is a general consensus in each society of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour (ethical). Like all things we all need to find a common ground. Explore what our core aims are and work towards those aims. Instead of bickering over our interpretations or beliefs, we need to come together more now than ever to guarantee a brighter future. I think what brings us together in this hobby and marine environmentalists is a shared appreciation of the wonderful marine life, its diversity and amazing colour. On a point of ethics, both groups believe in conserving this amazing natural resource. That is what I believe we should be aiming for with regards ethics.

I salute you brother and don`t` forget you will never stand alone. Esprit de Corps.

 

[Phil Dor]

The answer is plain common sense; most fish kept in a well maintained reeftank will live much longer lives than what they would have had on a natural reef. Anybody thinking that this is not ethical must immediately stop eating fish in any form, fresh, canned, smoked, pickled, and if he's an 'angler' he also must stop his hobby and throw his equipment away.