Fish are friends not food....finding Nemo...
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mikdes PM
I don't understand how eating fish can be so blatantly unvegan if you don't know if they suffer. It just doesnt make sense.
I guess this depends on your definition of veganism - it may be worth including in the thread reasons that eating fish is unvegan as I can come up with a few good reasons but there are others that would be able to give a lot more.
- it has been shown that fish do feel pain. I refer to the bee venom study that was posted by several.
- if you have any personal experience with fish you will understand that they are intelligent sentient beings that respond to interactions. I am speaking of aquarium fish here.
- the process of killing a fish is violent in nature
- if does not take into account the effect on fish communities or the effect on *non-target* species
- there is no need to eat fish for nutritional reasons so why would you?!
I read the links that you provided, one in particular was from a pro-angling site and therefore introduces bias. Science is often biased as well but it tries not to be, this is why I would take a study reported in New Scientist or Nature, over one reported from an Angler's perspective.
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mikdes
I also try as much as possible to not intentionally cause harm to others. However, when i Know that thousands of insects die for vegetables and that is perfectly fine for vegans to accept, but they cannot accept that fact that a fish might not feel pain, then I think the ideology is flawed.
You have said this before in your thread; but I do not understand the reasoning. Are you saying that because insects die in the natural course of things; whether that be agriculture or walking down the street or mowing lawns, that it is then okay to kill and eat fish since you are not sure that they do feel pain?
As a vegan, should not the question be is it okay to kill fish to eat them if there is the possibility that they feel pain? The answer is an automatic NO!! Pain is only the beginning of the equation; there are so many other facets to the vegan assessment and we don't judge simply on perceived capacity for pain or suffering.
Thousands of insects die every second of the day! Even while sleeping thousands of mites are on your skin and in your bed and are being born, living and dying as you slumber. You can't compare them to fish however as they are not physiologically the same.
You will find that there are a great many vegan that are *not* perfectly comfortable with insects dying as a result of their activities. Despite this, it is hard to justify the extrapolation that if some are okay with some insects dying due to the lack of being able to detect recogniseable demonstrations of pain, that it is okay to consume fish because you personally doubt they can feel pain.
Does not the suggestion that fish can and do feel pain give reason enough to avoid eating them - entirely apart from all of the other reasons there are to not eat fish?
From an animal behavior science journal
Applied Animal Behaviour Science 86 (2004) 225–250
Can fish suffer?: perspectives on sentience, pain, fear and stress
K.P. Chandroo, I.J.H. Duncan, R.D. Moccia∗Department of Animal and Poultry Sciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ont., Canada N1G 2W1
In contrast to other major forms of livestock agriculture, there is a paucity of scientific information on the welfare of fish raised under intensive aquacultural conditions. This reflects an adherence to the belief that these animals have not evolved the salient biological characteristics that are hypothesised to permit sentience. In this review, we evaluate the scientific evidence for the existence of sentience in fish, and in particular, their ability to experience pain, fear and psychological stress. Teleost fish are considered to have marked differences in some aspects of brain structure and organization as compared to tetrapods, yet they simultaneously demonstrate functional similarities and a level of cognitive development suggestive of sentience. Anatomical, pharmacological and behavioural data suggest that affective states of pain, fear and stress are likely to be experienced by fish in similar ways as in tetrapods. This implies that fish have the capacity to suffer, and that welfare consideration for farmed fish should take these states into account.We suggest that the concept of animal welfare can be
applied legitimately to fish. It is therefore appropriate to recognize and study the welfare of farmed fish.
Basically it is saying that yes, fish do feel pain on a level comparable to tetrapods (four legged creatures) and this has implications for the aquaculture industry in intensive farming.
It seems, fortunately for fish everywhere, that vegans will not be eating them anytime soon... :)