Fishes do not have the sweet
doleful eyes of seals nor the cuddliness of furry creatures. They live in an environment
alien to us. So we think they do not deserve the compassion we show to land mammals.
But there's a story behind what lies on your plate next to a lemon wedge or behind that
supposedly "peaceful" afternoon spent at your neighbourhood angling pond.
FISHING
A distinction must be made between fishing for fun and fishing for food. The former is
plain sick while the latter could be justified if the eating of fish is necessary - but it
is not. The majority of people reading that sentence will not
agree with it - all I can ask is for them to think for a moment from the point of view of
the fish! Fish feel pain in the same way as mammals like us - you just have to look at a
fish writhing on a hook to know that. You don't need any fancy scientific experiment.
It is beyond me to understand how any unperverted
civilised person can gain pleasure from killing a living, feeling creature. Yet we see it
all the time - apparently normal people do enjoy the "sport" of
angling. The
only explanation I can see is that they have just never stopped to think what they are
doing.
If you are a fisherman, please take the time to
check out No
Fishing.Net and the Gold and Green Fish below:
The following information on fish was compiled by HEAL (Humane Ethics for Animal Life) of Singapore.
HEAL in turn acknowledges the help of PISCES (Click on the gold fish below).
"FISH FEEL PAIN TOO" - click on this gold fish for evidence:
Because fish cannot cry out or grimace in pain, we think that they cannot feel pain but
biochemically and structurally the central nervous systems of fish closely resembles ours.
In vertebrates, free nerve-endings register pain: fish have an abundance of these
nerve-endings. When injured, fish writhe, gasp and show other signs of pain.Fishes are so exquisitely sensitive to stimuli that any pain they experience may be
acute.
"SPORT" FISHING
Fish use their lips and tongues like humans use their hands and thus these areas very
acutely register pain.
Imagine reaching for a mango on a tree and having your hand impaled then
jerked off the ground with the hook through your flesh. Your whole weight hangs
on your hand and you are yanked into an atmosphere where you cannot breathe.
This is what happens to a fish during sport fishing, only substitute the hand
with the fish's mouth.
If anglers could get inside fishes' skin for 10 minutes, they'd find hooking and
"playing" their prey a lot less "relaxing" or "sporting."
- If a large fish is caught and difficult to pull out of the water, it may have a gaff
hook (a large hook attached to a handle) stuck through its flesh to haul it ashore. The
hook is then pulled from its mouth, worsening the original injury.
- Many fish are left to asphyxiate slowly. The trauma of suffocation is worsened as the
pressure exerted on the body of the fish by air is lower than that exerted by water. This
leads to changes in blood pressure in surface veins and internal bleeding in the gills.
- Many fish die of exhaustion even before they are hauled in.
People would be horrified if a dog or cat had a hook stuck in its mouth and was dragged
across the road to be drowned. However this is exactly what is done to fish without any
thought.
After the catch
- Medium sized and large fish are stabbed with a hand-held hook or gaff. Sometimes fish
are skinned alive.
- People think that catching then releasing a fish is harmless but this inflicts terror
and pain and often permanently disables or kills the fish. Dropping, netting and handling
remove a fish's delicate transparent surface skin which is an important protective layer.
This can be fatal. Severe mouth lacerations can destroy a fish's ability eat.
Live Baiting
- Some anglers use small fish as live bait for larger predatory fish.
- Hooks may be threaded through various parts of the fish's body, including the eyes,
mouth and jaw.
- The small fish also suffers the terror of being hunted by bigger fish without being able
to escape. Some anglers also maim the fish by cutting their fins or breaking their backs
because injuries attract predatory fish.
What YOU can do
- Recognise fishing as a bloodsport and do not take part in it or any other activity
harmful to sea animals.
- Educate your friends, relatives, colleagues and employers that fishing is a cruel sport.
- Take part in other forms of recreation which are not implicated in the suffering of
others. Take part in real sports.
- When you go to the beach, never dump trash. Collect any trash you see. Many sea
creatures will be saved by your simple act.
COMMERCIAL FISHING
Some methods of commercial fishing:
This has led to a serious depletion of fish stocks and killed many other non-target
species such as seals, dolphins and whales which drown in the nets they become entangled
in.
A moving boat drags an enormous net through the water which traps fish. For 1 to 4 hours
the trapped fish are squeezed and bounced together with netted rocks and ocean debris.
Their sharp scales can be filed away and their flanks can be scraped entirely raw. When fish try to bet back out of the nets, the netting catches them by their gill-plates
or fins. Many of the fish suffocate while others struggle so much in the sharp mesh that they
bleed to death. Because many trappers do not haul up their gillnets daily, trapped fish may die a slow
death stretching for days. Fish that are caught in trawl nets are often crushed to death under the weight of their
catch.
When hauled up from substantial depths, fish undergo incredible decompression. The swim-bladder can be ruptured, the eyes pop out and the oesophagus and stomach are
pushed out of the mouth. Smaller fish are dumped onto chopped ice. Most suffocate or are crushed to death.
What YOU Can Do
- Reduce or cut out your consumption of fish and other sea creatures
- Inform your friends of the cruelty behind the commercial fishing industry
- Inform your friends about the hazards of eating sea animals (Please see section on
Veganism for details).
OTHER GREAT CREATURES WE DESTROY
- Almost all 350-odd known varieties of shark are being killed, many just for their fins,
much faster than they can reproduce and are also being starved out of their habitat.
- Sharks and sea turtles all thrived before the dinosaurs. Some of them have longer life
spans than humans. Yet they may disappear from the face of the earth by the year 2000
because of our greed.
LOBSTERS & CRABS
Lobsters and crabs look very different from most animals. Because they have shells,
many of us think that they cannot feel pain.
Like humans, lobsters have sophisticated nervous systems and can feel pain, whether it
comes from boiling water or being ripped apart.
Lobsters don't bleed, but will bang against the sides of the pot with boiling water
with their claws trying to escape.
What YOU Can Do
- Share with your friends your knowledge about lobsters and crabs being able to feel pain.
- Avoid eating these sea creatures.
FISH FARMING
- Fishes are crowded in thousands into floating cages, tanks or earth ponds.
- Crowding and confinement cause them to become stressed and agitated.
- It is estimated that 20% of the food fed to fish on fish farms is uneaten and this,
together with excreta, causes a decrease in oxygen and an upset of nutrient balance on the
sea bed, which threatens other marine life.
- Disease is a problem in fish farms. Overcrowding leads to infections of the pancreas,
ulceration of the flesh, kidney disease and sea lice infestation. When antibiotics are
used in large amounts to address these, bacteria become resistant to drugs, producing yet
more disease.
- Although many fish are killed and refrigerated or frozen before shipping, there are also
increasing numbers of fish which are transported live to processing plants.
- Like humans, fish suffer from motion sickness. Before they travel, they are starved for
24 hours. This is to prevent vomiting.
- Before killing, the fish can be starved up to 3 weeks to remove undesirable oil deposits
as commercial fish feed is very high in oil and it will be less messy to take out the
insides of a fish.
- Slaughter methods for fish vary:
- Commonly a hand-held club is used to kill the fish. If it is not wielded effectively,
the fish may simply be injured, possibly losing a eye in the process.
- Electrocution
- Cutting the gills which causes death by blood loss.
- Suffocation by being put into bins of ice. The ice, meant to keep the carcass fresh,
causes the fish to remain conscious for longer. Thus, suffering is prolonged.
- Fish such as plaice will desperately cling to life for hours out of water and may well
be filleted alive.
- In some markets, fish steaks are cut off starting at the tail end - the
fish continues to swim around the bowl between customers.
AQUARIUM FISH
Imagine being locked up in a room with
the same people forever. In aquariums fish can only swim round and round the
same enclosure in boredom instead of living a varied life foraging for food in
the majestic aquatic underworld which knows no limits.
- Countless fish die even before they reach the pet store.
- Capture alone injures and kills millions of fish when they are incapacitated by
anaesthetics, dynamite or cyanide before being caught by hand or net.
- Keeping a fish in captivity disregards its most basic instincts and is incompatible with
their fragile and high-strung nature.
- Fish are more sensitive to temperature than any warm-blooded animal. A sudden change of
only a few degrees can kill a fish. In small containers temperature can fluctuate very
quickly. Yet fishes are kept in such enclosures.
- Aquarium fish are harmed by pollutants like cigarette smoke, paint fumes and aerosol
sprays.
- In bowls or tanks, even the ammonia that the fish themselves excrete can accumulate to
toxic levels. Just like chlorine, this can cause severe breathing difficulties and nervous
spasms in fish. Chlorine in tap water can very easily kill fish.
- Human sights and sounds also harm fish. Vibrations from a TV, stereo or even a slammed
door can alarm and injure fish.
- Social fish such as goldfish will show signs of depression such as paleness, lethargy
and drooping fins when a companion dies.
What YOU Can Do
- Don't keep fishes as "pets". However big and decorative your enclosure is,
it IS a form of confinement.
When you see aquariums in areas such as shopping centres, waiting rooms and so forth,
write a polite letter to the management, appreciating their gesture as one of trying to
please the customer but explain why you prefer more humane "exhibits" or
"entertainment". You can also explain the negative educational value of such
exhibits to children. (Remember, although you may get curt or stock replies, if enough
people take the initiative to do this, over time, change IS possible!)
FISH IS NOT A HEALTH FOOD
Fish does not contain as much saturated fat as the flesh of mammals but fish accumulate
more toxic chemicals in their bodies than either cattle or poultry. All fish commonly
consumed by humans are predators who absorb the same build-up of toxins through the food
chain as hawks and eagles.
Doctors Say: Don't Buy the Fish Story - from Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (1), suggested that eating
oily fish might reduce the likelihood of heart attacks. This latest fish story must be put
in context of other evidence which does not support the use of fish products.
A much larger Harvard study, published in 1995 in the New England Journal of Medicine (2),
found that men who ate the most fish actually ended up with more heart problems than those
who rarely ate fish. The 44,895-person study also showed that omega-3 fatty acids did not
help either. Those whose diets were richest in omega-3's had more heart problems than
those whose diets contained far less.
The only diet/lifestyle program that has been shown to reverse heart disease, pioneered by
Dr. Dean Ornish of the University of California at San Francisco, uses a low-fat,
vegetarian diet along with mild exercise, stress reduction, and smoking cessation. Plant
foods have no cholesterol and are usually low in fat, while animal products, including
fish, always contain cholesterol, and are usually much higher in fat.
Using a fish-based instead of a vegetarian diet can be risky. The blood-thinning effect of
fish oils can increase the risk of haemorrhagic strokes. Second, all fish contain both
cholesterol and fat, including saturated fat. Third, fish and shellfish are highly
contaminated. As water passes over fish gills, industrial and agricultural chemicals in
waterways dissolve into their blood, and end up in muscle tissue. As larger fish eat
smaller fish, the contaminants become more concentrated. A 1992 Consumer Reports survey
found that half of the flounder sampled in New York contained pesticides. Highly toxic
PCB's were found in 43 percent of salmon, 50 percent of whitefish, and 25 percent of
swordfish. The National Research Council reports that PCB's are found in virtually every
site where fish or shellfish are tested, even in spots as remote as rural Alaska, the
Virgin Islands, and Hawaii. Of 145 sites recently sampled for mercury in shellfish, it was
found in every single one of them. Avoiding fish eliminates half of all mercury exposure.
Fish oils are also highly unstable, encouraging the production of free radicals.
"Fish diets are certainly nothing like diets based on vegetables, fruits, grains, and
legumes," said Neal Barnard, M.D., of the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine. "Vegetarian diets, along with an otherwise healthy lifestyle, can actually
reverse existing heart disease, with none of the stroke risk that fish oils can bring.
And
while you can buy organic, pesticide-free produce, there is no such thing as "organic
fish" -- fish are loaded with chemical contaminants."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Siscovick DS, Raghunathan TE, King 1, et al. Dietary intake and cell membrane levels of
long-chain n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids and the risk of primary cardiac arrest. JAMA
1995;274:1363-7.
2.Ascherio A. Rimm EB, Stampfer MJ, Giovannucci EL, Willett WC. Dietary intake of marine
n-3 fatty acids, fish intake, and the risk of coronary disease among men. N Engl J Med
1995;332:977-82.
http://www.epa.gov/ost/fish/
For more on fish, check on this green one: 
See also the page on: Vegetarianism.
Last revised:
15-Dec-07
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