Fishing: The catch is this sport could well be cruel

[Guest guest]

Kim, thanks for that. Whilst an 11-year old and experiencing fishing just

like Bidda did, I can relate. My own un-scientific conclusion at the time

disagreed with the Roslin Institute¹s; fish appeared to feel pain when being

bashed with a hammer, or when gutted when alive. Duh.

 

Perhaps unrelated except that this article deals with Australian fish, is

this bizarro report from the NYT:

(http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/arts/design/01voge.html?pagewanted=1)

³Swimming With Famous Dead Sharks² about Damien Hirst¹s strange obsession

with dead animals as artwork. WTF?

 

Jigs in Nepal

 

 

 

On 9/17/08 4:38 AM, " Kim Bartlett " <anpeople wrote:

 

>

>

>

> http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/the-catch-is-this-sport-could-well-be-cruel

> /2008/09/15/1221330741163.html

>

> The catch is this sport could well be cruel

>

> Bidda Jones

> September 16, 2008

>

> When I was 11, I caught my first fish. It turned out to be my last

> one, too. After a short wait, a small, flapping, brownish, shiny fish

> was dangling at the end of my handline, and became my responsibility.

> It was my job to do the killing. I can't remember what I hit the fish

> with, but after 10 or so blows to what I hoped was its head (I had my

> eyes shut), it was still flapping around in the boat. I remember its

> mouth gaping and shutting as it struggled to stay alive. My father

> finally killed it, and cooked it for dinner.

> These days I spend my working life telling other people how they

> should treat animals. And that, at least for me, includes fish.

> Despite knowing a lot about fish, we still argue about their capacity

> to feel pain. While we have an increased capacity to empathise with

> other animals that sound and behave like us, the big problem with

> fish is that they're just too different.

> And because of that we don't really worry about what we do to them.

> In parts of Australia, until very recently, fish didn't count when it

> came to animal welfare legislation - the legal definition of an

> animal excluded them.

> (There are still some weird anomalies, such as in the Northern

> Territory where you can be prosecuted for being cruel to a fish

> living in captivity, but not if it's in the wild.)

> Angling is one of the most popular recreational pastimes in

> Australia, the United States, Britain and a lot of other places. It's

> everywhere; it is totally establishment. At least 5 million

> Australians are involved, which is why the debate over whether fish

> feel pain makes people nervous. Really nervous.

> Proving fish don't feel pain, at least in the way humans feel pain,

> seems to have become a personal mission for one American academic,

> James Rose, a professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology

> at the University of Wyoming, Laramie. Rose is doing his scientific

> best to make sure no fuzzy-minded, tree-hugging animal lover stands

> between the men in waders and their potential catch.

> Rose argues that because fish don't have an adequately developed

> forebrain neocortex (the bit that does all the clever stuff), they

> are incapable of consciousness, and therefore cannot feel pain.

> But while the neocortex is important in shaping the degree of

> consciousness of an animal, we don't really know where in the animal

> kingdom we can draw the line between species that do or don't

> experience consciousness. Nor do we yet fully understand what

> consciousness is.

> For example, recent studies of patients diagnosed as being in a

> persistent vegetative states have found that in some cases their

> brains respond in a similar way to those of a conscious person.

> Conversely, Rose uses the case of Terri Schiavo, who was diagnosed in

> 1990 as being in a persistent vegetative state. Schiavo's parents

> claimed her movements and reaction to noxious stimuli were evidence

> she was still conscious.

> The neurologists said she was unconscious, her reactions were

> reflexive and her condition irreversible. Following her death in

> 2005, the neurologists' diagnosis was confirmed by autopsy. Rose's

> point is that we should not be misled by what we observe: what

> animals do means nothing in itself, since their actions may be in

> response to a reflex over which they have no conscious control. The

> converse, though, is that we should not be misled by what we can't

> observe.

> Rose accepts fish have nocioceptors, receptors which respond to

> painful stimuli and which are similar in structure to our own. But,

> says Rose, having nocioceptors isn't enough to join the pain club,

> because the reflex is common to most animals and does not require a

> complex nervous system. To be a fully fledged member you must

> experience or feel pain, and to do that you need consciousness.

> In contrast, Lynne Sneddon, from the Roslin Institute in Scotland,

> and her colleagues, found that after rainbow trout had acetic acid or

> bee venom injected into their lips, they increased their breathing

> rate, were slower to feed, rocked from side to side and rubbed their

> lips on the tank floor and walls.

> Where does that leave the big fish debate? The no-pain believers say

> until we prove that fish have consciousness, we cannot say they can

> feel pain.

> The opposing camp says because fish demonstrate behaviour indicative

> of experiencing pain, we should assume they do. We don't know what

> fish feel, but if they lose their appetite and act like they've got a

> sore mouth after being jabbed in the lips with bee venom, that's good

> enough for me. It hurts - somehow.

>

> Bidda Jones is chief scientist of RSPCA Australia. This is an edited

> extract from her chapter in The Finlay Lloyd Book About ANIMALS, to

> be published on October 4.

 

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