from Dawnwatch:
The Sunday, October 8, Los Angeles Times includes an op-ed headed,
"Hooked on a Myth" with the subheading, "Do fish feel pain? A biologist
says we shouldn't be so quick to believe they don't." (pg M5)
The piece is by Victoria Braithwaite, a behavioral biologist at
Edinburgh University.
It opens:
"Every year sportsmen around the world drag millions of fish to shore
on barbed hooks. It's something people have always done, and with little
enough conscience. Fish are well, fish. They're not dogs, who yelp
when you accidentally step on their feet. Fish don't cry out or look sad
or respond in a particularly recognizable way. So we feel free to treat
them in a way that we would not treat mammals or even birds.
"But is there really any biological justification for exempting fish
from the standards nowadays accorded to so-called higher animals? Do we
really know whether fish feel pain or whether they suffer or whether,
in fact, our gut sense that they are dumb, unfeeling animals is
accurate?"
She describes an experiment in which she and colleagues injected bee
venom under the skin of trout. The animals acted as if in pain -- they
lost interest in food, their gills beat faster, and they rubbed the
affected areas against the wall of their tank. When the fish were given
painkillers (which would not remove the irritating substance but would only
impact the experience of pain) the fish acted normally.
Braithwaite writes, however, "To determine what fish go through
mentally when they experience painful stimuli, we also need to determine
whether they have a capacity to feel emotion and to suffer.
"This is a much harder problem. It goes to the very heart of one of the
biggest unresolved issues in biology: Do nonhuman animals have emotions
and feelings? Are nonhuman animals conscious?"
(Millions of people who have seen their dogs go bounding around the
house at the site of a leash in their human's hand should be laughing at
the idea that the scientists are still trying to figure out whether or
not nonhuman animals have emotions.)
She writes:
"It turns out that the stereotype of fish as slow, dim-witted creatures
is wrong; many fish are remarkably clever. For example, they can learn
geometrical relationships and landmarks and then use these to
generate a mental map to plan escape routes if a predator shows up.
"And their brains are not as different from ours as we once thought."
Braithwaite explains that their forebrain areas are similar to ours,
that "If these regions are damaged in fish, their learning and emotional
capacities are impaired; they can no longer find their way through
mazes, and they lose their sense of fear" so they are obviously "more than
simple automata."
She asks whether that knowledge should change the way we treat fish.
You'll find the full piece on line at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...nion-rightrail
OR
http://tinyurl.com/rnya2
It presents a great opportunity for appreciative pro-veggie letters to
the editor.