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If Fish Could Scream
There is no humane slaughter requirement for the staggering number of wild fish caught and killed at sea
When I was a child, my father used to take me for walks, often along a river or by the sea. We would pass people fishing, perhaps reeling in their lines with struggling fish hooked at the end of them. Once I saw a man take a small fish out of a bucket and impale it, still wriggling, on an empty hook to use as bait.
Another time, when our path took us by a tranquil stream, I saw a man sitting and watching his line, seemingly at peace with the world, while next to him, fish he had already caught were flapping helplessly and gasping in the air. My father told me that he could not understand how anyone could enjoy an afternoon spent taking fish out of the water and letting them die slowly.
These childhood memories flooded back when I read Worse things happen at sea: the welfare of wild-caught fish, a breakthrough report released last month on fishcount.org.uk. In most of the world, it is accepted that if animals are to be killed for food, they should be killed without suffering. Regulations for slaughter generally require that animals be rendered instantly unconscious before they are killed, or death should be brought about instantaneously, or, in the case of ritual slaughter, as close to instantaneously as the religious doctrine allows.
Not for fish. There is no humane slaughter requirement for wild fish caught and killed at sea, nor, in most places, for farmed fish. Fish caught in nets by trawlers are dumped on board the ship and allowed to suffocate. Impaling live bait on hooks is a common commercial practice: long-line fishing, for example, uses hundreds or even thousands of hooks on a single line that may be 50-100 kilometers long. When fish take the bait, they are likely to remain caught for many hours before the line is hauled in.
Likewise, commercial fishing frequently depends on gill nets – walls of fine netting in which fish become snared, often by the gills. They may suffocate in the net, because, with their gills constricted, they cannot breathe. If not, they may remain trapped for many hours before the nets are pulled in.
The most startling revelation in the report, however, is the staggering number of fish on which humans inflict these deaths. By using the reported tonnages of the various species of fish caught, and dividing by the estimated average weight for each species, Alison Mood, the report’s author, has put together what may well be the first-ever systematic estimate of the size of the annual global capture of wild fish. It is, she calculates, in the order of one trillion, although it could be as high as 2.7 trillion.
To put this in perspective, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that 60 billion animals are killed each year for human consumption – the equivalent of about nine animals for each human being on the planet. If we take Mood’s lower estimate of one trillion, the comparable figure for fish is 150. This does not include billions of fish caught illegally nor unwanted fish accidentally caught and discarded, nor does it count fish impaled on hooks as bait.
Many of these fish are consumed indirectly – ground up and fed to factory-farmed chicken or fish. A typical salmon farm churns through 3-4 kilograms of wild fish for every kilogram of salmon that it produces.
Let’s assume that all this fishing is sustainable, though of course it is not. It would then be reassuring to believe that killing on such a vast scale does not matter, because fish do not feel pain. But the nervous systems of fish are sufficiently similar to those of birds and mammals to suggest that they do. When fish experience something that would cause other animals physical pain, they behave in ways suggestive of pain, and the change in behavior may last several hours. (It is a myth that fish have short memories.) Fish learn to avoid unpleasant experiences, like electric shocks. And painkillers reduce the symptoms of pain that they would otherwise show.
Victoria Braithwaite, a professor of fisheries and biology at Pennsylvania State University, has probably spent more time investigating this issue than any other scientist. Her recent book Do Fish Feel Pain? shows that fish are not only capable of feeling pain, but also are a lot smarter than most people believe. Last year, a scientific panel to the European Union concluded that the preponderance of the evidence indicates that fish do feel pain.
Why are fish the forgotten victims on our plate? Is it because they are cold-blooded and covered in scales? Is it because they cannot give voice to their pain? Whatever the explanation, the evidence is now accumulating that commercial fishing inflicts an unimaginable amount of pain and suffering. We need to learn how to capture and kill wild fish humanely – or, if that is not possible, to find less cruel and more sustainable alternatives to eating them.
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46 Comments so far
Show AllDisney made one good environmental movie...Finding NEMO! There's death in those nets , those trawlers and at the hands of mean little children too. Have your kids watch NEMO, and then maybe they won't want fish for dinner anymore.
I went fishing with my dad, just once. The catfish looked at me and I made my dad throw it back. I'm glad that I had such a great dad, and the funny thing is , I'm not fish eater anymore. Maybe they have scales, but they also have eyes! When those look at you, it's just too hard to want to eat them.
no mention of mercury, or other chemical buildup, in the tissue of fish, or the oceans at large...
I can't think of fish flesh without thinking of mercury, anymore...
Ben Elton once said, "If meat is murder, fish is justifiable homicide." It was a joke; no longer funny. Although fish have good eyesight, they also use their other senses to get around and find food. My dad used to say that fish couldn't feel the hooks in their lips; he never explained why the fish fight so hard. Fish do feel pain, though, and many species use their lips to determine whether a tidbit is edible. The state of industrialized fishing is as desperate as any other form of industrial "resource retrieval". Indiscriminate, over-utilized, and definitely unregulated.
Thank you CD for posting this. Commercial fishing is such a devastating industry. So much suffering with just one fell-swoop of the net.
Currently working on a story that involves dolphin, serendipity placed in my path (at the local flea market) a PBS documentary done more than 20 years ago. It featured Robin Williams doing his impersonations and clowning around at several dolphin research facilities. (The documentary had many endearing moments.)
What struck me was his mentioning that an estimated 250,000 dolphin get stuck in large fishing drift nets EACH year. That just blew my circuits.
These creatures are marvels of the deep, teachers of peace.
Japan is known for fish kills where the roe is taken out and the carcass thrown into land fills! The elaborate food chains built up over millions of years are being every which way whacked, wrecked, and mangled. What a travesty! And the right wing pushes an agenda that disables birth control! As if the numbers of persons and the way they tax (albeit disproportionately, as money tends to exert a far larger footprint on the body of great Gaia) nature's food-banks can last?
I've often wondered why people get so upset about dolphins being caught in nets, but have no problem eating "dolphin-safe tuna." Is it the cuteness factor?
Well, all I can say is: Baby steps. Chances are, these folks are already enlightened enough to choose "dolphin safe" will discover more information at a later time, and soon they won't eat tuna at all. Perhaps in its own way, the label itself is a double positive. (If there is such a thing!)
SR,
"These creatures are marvels of the deep, teachers of peace." No, dolphins are not "teachers of peace". They are known to kill their own species just like man. They eat live fish in order to live themselves. Although dolphins are considered "highly intelligent" by man they still are wild creatures that have to survive in a fish/mammal eat fish/mammal world.
OYE
Indeed. There are just as many reports of dolphins killing humans as helping them.
Dolphins are not peace loving either, they hunt down sharks and other animals that enter their territory and kill them.
Please don't romanticise and anthropomorphise animals. It gets in the way of seeing their true nature, a nature that is beautiful on it's own merits. Animals do not need our labels.
"Please don't romanticise and anthropomorphise animals."
I would also go as far as to say do not romanticize humans as the "kings of the animal kingdom" or even outside of and superior to the rest of nature. That kind of attitude only breads false ideas of superiority and speciesism.
That's news to me. I didn't know dolphins could be that bad but I would assume that they would only attack if provoked.
I blame the New Agers. Somehow they got it into their heads that dolphins are the only other intelligent mammals on the face of the planet and that we have some sort of cosmic connection with them. Walk into any New Age bookstore and I guarantee there will be a whole section on just dolphins. They see them as "healers" who can somehow communicate telepathically with humans if we just listen.. or something. It's all a steaming pile of gourmet poop in a crystal goblet, if you ask me.
I remember watching a Penn & Teller episode about dolphins and there was a guy on there that said the reason most people are so fond of them is a result of nothing more than evolution giving them a face that looks like it's always smiling and the human instinct to be attracted to that sort of thing, just as we are attracted to animals with big eyes and heads because it reminds us of babies.
As much as I love Japan for most of its culture, when it comes to fish, attitudes can stink there. I had a debate with one of the Japanese residents on vegetarianism and he would endlessly debate trying to prove that fish is not meat. The man is generally smart and understands a lot of things but even after trying to explain the biology basics to him, he still wouldn't let it go. The commercial whaling interests have taken advantage of that cultural weakness and turned it into economic gains. Unfortunately, Japan isn't alone when you look at how China and India have more fish entrees compared to the vegetarian entrees in more restaurants that aren't strictly vegetarian.
As with all other animal food that is brought to consumers' plates, people have no idea how that food arrived there. Perhaps if people were able to see how fish are caught they would consider not eating them. I say "perhaps" because humans tend to not give a damn about anything in the end, no matter how horrible it is for others - as long as it suits their needs.
Nonetheless, I recall seeing a travel documentary where the host was on board a fishing ship for a couple hours. They catch the fish in huge nets, drag them on board, and dump them in a huge metal bin where they flop around on top of each other suffocating. All the while the loud machinery is dumping ever more fish on top of them. Does anyone really think that's anything other than horrifying if you're a fish? What kind of human mind can't accept that animals have nerve endings? What kind of human mind can't accept that animals have brains? What kind of human mind can't accept that animals have varying degrees of emotion?
Most people are sleepwalking through their existence. An existence that can only be described as a super-reality, where every need is provided in clean and pleasant fashion. No ugly realities need be introduced lest they make people uncomfortable by inserting moments of actual reality.
...And human brutality causes, heir to man"kind" 's compulsive greedy and murderous actions, sneering at vegetarians and vegans.
We become what we eat!
They just don't want to admit that something they've been doing all their lives and has become such an integral part of most human cultures could possibly be cruel and unnecessary.
My husband and I used to go out on a rowboat just to enjoy the tranquility of being out on a lake. We would come back to shore and watch fishermen "peacefully" at their task while the fish they had caught struggled for air by their side. I couldn't understand how the fishermen couldn't see or feel the suffering they were causing.
It brought home to me how isolated we are and how suffering is contained within the individual who is experiencing it, while those around him or her feel nothing of that suffering. It reminds me of the Holocaust when so many in the camps suffered while their captors were able to enjoy themselves.
I don't know how to make the suffering of others something that concerns others, let alone compels them to act. We seem to have a society that is built upon the suffering of others, animals always, then natives, then slaves, then immigrants, then the poor. Now we thrive on the suffering and exploitation of people who live in other countries where where environmental and labor laws are either non existent or ignored.
I understand that suffering is a part of the natural world, but the scale to which humans have mindlessly inflicted suffering on "others," either human or otherwise, is beyond my ability to understand or tolerate. I can understand the imnperatives of survival, but not the prolonged suffereing we cause.
JP: A muscle that isn't used much can atrophy. The heart is a muscle. A lot of people have shut down the sentience of the heart and soul. Fortunately, you have not. Like you, I feel all the pain that's so unnecessary, such a direct product of unjust systems... those that are generally NOT wanted by the vast majority of persons. It's a double-edged blade to feel it all and not know how to change things. Yet I think it would be worse to be among those who willingly put their hearts and souls to sleep... a kind of willful massacre of the inner spirit.
Oh, thats good SR.
"I can understand the imnperatives of survival, but not the prolonged suffereing we cause."
Me either, jp, me either.
While I don't mind deciding for ourselves how we treat other species on the planet I just grind my teeth in irritation and frustration when the real other-species side is left out. Of all the species on the planet who prey on others, we might be some of the most humane, even in our brutality.
Did everyone completely forget their biology? In a sense this is the flip side of pretending that only the "superior" humans have the capacity to feel. The natural world (non-human) is pretty nasty.
Fish eat other fish alive by chomping, or thrashing or swallowing alive to digest horribly in their stomachs. Some creatures eat their mates in mating. There is even a fly which super French-kisses its mate, and she totally sucks out and "eats" all the male's insides through his mouth (talk about sci-fi nasties).
Wasps hunt victims they paralyze and then lay their eggs inside of. When the larvae grow they slowly eat their paralyzed host from the inside out until they are ready to emerge, finally killing the victim. Those gentle whales and other filter strainers devour thousands of little lives at a gulp. What kind of Disney fantasy do you live in if you think there is some shared nice-nice parity? Are you all city types?
By all means, don't cause hurt to other species, but do it for yourself. Please do care for other species, from your own perspective. There really is no need or excuse to cause suffering but please don't imagine that nature itself really cares so much. You really need a few good field trips.
You got that right.
Animals have been killing each other for roughly half a billion years. I remember a BBC documentary where I saw a baboon eat a baby antelope alive. It started to eat the leg of the baby who was twisting in pain. The baboon is not really a hunter and not really trained to kill, so it just eat and just control the other animal with its body weight. Killer whales feast on seals and dolphins. I saw a film in which a killer whale gets into the mouth of a huge filtering whale and leaves with a huge chunk of its tongue.
We live on a horrible planet. From the beginning the rules are wrong. Live is based on murder. It's hopeless.
I guess what people are saying in this thread is that since we are the only ones who can be aware, why not be different? It's out of the question to keep a whale from keeling another whale, or to keep a pride of lions from eating, alive, an elephant dying of old age or of thirst that has just collapsed on the ground and is not able to stand.
Maybe as human we should decide not to take part in the horror. I have. Most people won't in my life time. That doesn't make them right.
DD: The animals you speak of depend on doing the things you mentioned to live. They have no capacity to make moral judgments, they are exceptions to the rule.
We as humans on the other hand, have that capacity. The brutality we inflict onto other beings is by choice, not by necessity.
I HEAR U I SEA U, LET US SCREAM WITH A MILLION TONE & COLORS, I WILL SCREAM WITH YOU.
iN sOULIDARITy.
Respect life--ALL life.
Overpopulation demands industrialized killing of anything humans might eat - and they seem to have few restrictions...
I suspect a lot of the fish kill goes into pet food. I don't know what to do about that. My Kitty is pretty sold on it, as opposed to a vegetarian diet. About the best she could do is maybe unfertilized eggs and yogurt, but I doubt if that's balanced ...
This is actually a good point you bring up. I, personally, am vegan but I will never understand why some vegans insist that their carnivorous or omnivorous pets be as well.
Humans were never meant to eat other animals (and most certainly not at the high volume most people do; also, if you don't believe me I'd be more than happy to bestow the facts upon you), but cats are 100% carnivore and dogs are omnivores given their general status as scavengers in their undomesticated state.
Of course, if humans weren't so wont to own another living being, we might not have the problem of trying to figure out how to feed them without devastating the environment and they could just feed themselves like they have been for millennia. However, having adopted 2 cats myself, I can see the dilemma and the only advice I can offer is that you try as much as you can to feed them from a sustainable and environmentally conscious source.
If fish could scream, they'd beg not to be forced to read this lame fucking article.
Wah! I once stepped on an ant! And I felt so guilty, I cut off one of my fingers as penance! Wah! Last time I took a dump, 1,375,964 e. coli bacteria were snuffed out of existence! Wah!
Is this what common dreams has come to? I come here to read about Israelis exterminating human beings and running the US government. What is this crap? I have pulled so many bass out of the water that had somebody else's hook still stuck in their lips - because not only do they not mind, they're too fucking stupid to keep from doing it again and again.
Revo:
This is a truly idiotic comment. Yes, perhaps your bass fish isn't the best at learning to spot hooks and lures (this particular genus didn't evolve to avoid these kinds of unnatural stimuli). To claim that they are "too fucking stupid" shows that you have no idea how complex fish behavior actually is, including their social and mating behavior. Most of the commenters on this list are responding because they possess the human capacity for empathy to a degree that extends to other creatures, including fish. You obviously don't.
revo: I have to ask--what are you even doing here? I'd say get the hell out, but you're much too funny for that. I don't know about anyone else here, but I can always use a good laugh!
Looks like someone's wallowing in their superiority complex.
It was 32m down, under the Sea of Oman. A large puffer fish was parking off on a rockface. Big, round eyes watched me as I drifted closer. It stayed still as I reached out slowly and stroked its back, then its cheek with a fingertip. It edged closer and we hung there frozen for a couple of minutes, watching each other watch the other. A truly magnificent moment. For the rest of the dive this fish followed me, staying a few feet away to my left, watching me through big, round eyes.
Anthropomorphic personification? Perhaps. Proof of intelligence and awareness? Definitely.
The point of this post? No point. Just sharing. Kurt was wrong. It's not OK to eat fish, coz they do have feelings. My energy touched the energy of that fish, and its energy found its way into my soul. We are connected through time and space forever now. Mock and scoff, but the observer changes the observed. Quantum physics tells us this. We have both changed each other. Will the world take a different course because of this? Yes - someone will read this and their day will take a different course, whether for "good" or "bad". They in turn shall impact on someone else's day and the infinite possibilities shall branch out. All from a moment at 32m down under the sea of Oman.
Awesome.
ONE MAN: I like to snorkel, and have done so in Maui, The Cayman Islands, The Florida Keys, and off the coast of Puerto Rico, an island called Culebra.
When I was in the Cayman islands I got fixed up with this really "Mars-ruled" type guy. My host didn't want me to snorkel alone. I swear the fish in the region knew this guy, or his energy preceded him and EVERY fish hauled "ass" to hide behind a rock when he was nearby. At the least they "sensed" him.
He kept saying, "Get behind me," and I did what I damned pleased! When I swam on my own, I'd be surrounded by schools of fish, and it almost felt that they extended from me like wings! Very magical. I was thrilled by a school of Parrot Fish, and for any who haven't seen them, they are colorful, almost like peacocks of the deep.
Anyway, this creep speared one. (I read in the flight magazine that no one was allowed to do that on "The Queen's Bottom." No joke, that's how the sea bed is referred to there as it's still a possession of U.K.) It made me sad because I had met "the family" and noticed how the fish had to hide in horror from this moral midget.
As he skinned the fish, and began to feed it to his fat cat, he asked me if I was "seeing anyone."
Courtship?
Not for me.
This is the guy who thinks it's okay for humans and animals to have sex, and that new born babies can be euthanized for up to a month after they are born, right? Forgive me if I just don't give a shit about what he thinks on the pressing fish-rights issue.
@Michael Reilly - OK - I am speechless here - Even if Singer was the devil incarnate, it would not detract from the validity of his argument. Fish stocks all around the world have been decimated. I mean, decimated, not reduced. Speak to older divers - they all report the same thing - large fish species have vanished in the last 30 years. Gone. Left the building. You do know what happens when we start unravelling the web of life? So, no, you are not forgiven. Not by me, not by history, not by your own offspring. Fool that shouts so loud.
Do you remember Elian Gonzalez? He was the kid who tried to escape to the US from Cuba with his mother and some others on a rickety boat which apparently broke up and sunk. He was pulled out of the ocean by a couple of fishermen, the only survivor. He was later deported from the US.
When asked how he survived for so long in the ocean before he was found, he said that dolphins had come up under him and supported him. Take from this what you will.
Yes, I know, technically dolphins are not fish, they are mammals, and they don't have gills, breathing air through a blow hole.
Yes, dk, I have read several accounts of dolphins saving humans and also helping to guide stranded pilot whales out to sea. They are truly amazing, as well as beautiful.
A little off-point but Elian Gonzalez wasn't "deported" from the U.S. He was returned to Cuba where he was born and where his father, his only surviving parent, lived.
Actually, I like scallops and shrimp, but refuse to eat crabs. Does the scallop have the same senses as a fish?
All I know is that the very last time I went fishing, years ago, I put a hook in a live shrimp (the one and only time I've ever done that) and it most definitely reacted in a way that conveyed that it hurt. For lack of a better word, it squirmed. That is why it was the last time I ever fished. I still feel bad about it all these years later, although no, Revo, I don't plan on cutting off my finger to make amends. I just vowed I'd never do it again.
I suspect that if an organism can feel, it can feel pain.
I am sooo hungry for fish now. If fish don't want to get killed...maybe they should evolve.
The best thing you can do if you really care about this sort of thing or the continuing destruction of the environment is to stop eating animals. Then, if you have some land, start growing your own food.
Yeah, yeah, I know most of you are probably rolling your eyes at my suggestion and honestly so did I for many years. In fact, when my brother first decided to try vegetarianism at the age of 14 I told him straight to his face that he was just doing it for attention. But once little bits and pieces of information started to reveal themselves to me, I was curious to find out more and it really changed the way I thought about the world, not just pertaining to animals and why we eat them but also how we interact with each other. Honestly, it took me about 4 different tries before I could finally become meat-free. That stuff is addictive! And no, I'm not exaggerating, meat really does have addictive qualities.
Most people are afraid of "giving something up", so they try to ignore the overwhelming necessity to stop eating meat, but I can honestly say that that's the furthest from the truth. I have more variety in my diet now than I did when I was still a meat eater! I also acknowledge that another large factor is that most people simply don't know how to cook for themselves anymore, which is an issue that goes beyond vegetarianism, really.
All I can really hope for is that people will at least take a look at the information that is available. I understand how scary it is to admit to yourself that you might have been mistaken about something, especially if it's something you were raised with and have been doing for years, but in the long run you will feel better about yourself for making the change.
I just got back from eating sushi. More than 25 animals were killed for my meal and their flesh tasted sooo good. I used to have a job punching cows in the FACE!!