Fish Exploited for Food Suffer Like Mammals and Birds
An Animal Rights Article from All-Creatures.org

FROM

By Mary Finelli (FishFeel.org) as posted on Free From Harm
March 2014

Contrary to popular myth, fish can suffer fear and pain, as has been scientifically proven. Far more fish are exploited than any other category of animals, and they are subjected to the worst abuses. Yet, they have the least legal protection and receive the least concern for their well-being, even from the animal protection community.

“The scientific literature is quite clear. Anatomically, physiologically and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals…”
— Dr Donald Broom, Professor of Animal Welfare at Cambridge University

Fish: the Most Misunderstood Animals in Our Food System

Outdoor fish market in Japan
photo: Marine Photobank

Earth is home to more than 30,000 known species of fish, which is more than all the other species of vertebrate animals combined. Fish are amazingly diverse and truly fascinating. Did you know, for example, that they are fast learners with long-term memories and a keen sense of time? They recognize other individuals, can keep track of complex social relationships, and work cooperatively with other species. They are inquisitive, perceptive, and personable.

Sadly, fish are the most misrepresented and misperceived animals. For example, the absurd but common notion that they have “a three-second memory” should be blown out of the water by the fact that migrating fishes, such as salmon, remember their way home years later and from thousands of miles away. Others, including goldfish, can learn and remember skills. One is even noted for it in the Guinness Book of World Records!

Fish Feel Pain and Commercial Fisheries Cause Mass Suffering

Also contrary to popular myth, fish can suffer fear and pain, as has been scientifically proven. Far more fish are exploited than any other category of animals, and they are subjected to the worst abuses. Yet, they have the least legal protection and receive the least concern for their well-being, even from the animal protection community.

Globally, an estimated one to three trillion wild-caught fishes and 37 – 120 billion farmed fishes are killed commercially for food each year. Hundreds of millions more are killed for “sport” each year in the U.S. alone. Fishes are also increasingly replacing other animals for scientific experimentation. Approximately one-quarter of all the animals used for research and education in North America are fish. Additionally, some 1.5 billion are used for aquariums.

Tuna at wholesale fish market
photo Marine Photobank

Scientific Evidence Confirming Fish Sentience and Complex Behavior

For centuries, a common belief has been the Cartesian claim that nonhuman animal species were incapable of suffering pain. Thankfully, that fallacy is now rejected nearly universally in regard to mammalian and avian species. Tragically, the ignorance largely continues in regard to fish. While many people intuitively and/or intellectually realize that fish can suffer pain, society at large still views and treats fish as insentient beings. However, the scientific evidence is in: fish can, in fact, feel terror, panic and pain, and suffer immensely from it.

“[T]he results of many studies lead to believe that fish have the structures necessary and the capacity to experience fear and pain and can thus suffer…”
– The Scientific Panel for Animal Health and Welfare of the European Food Safety Authority (p. 156), June 2004

“Anatomical, pharmacological and behavioral data suggest that effective states of pain, fear and stress are likely to be experienced by fish in similar ways as in tetrapods [e.g., amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals]
– Can Fish Suffer? K.P Chandroo, I.J.H Duncan, R.D Moccia; Applied Animal Behavior Science, 2004

Injured sea lion caught in fishing netting
photo BTalbot 1990, Photo MarineBank

“A powerful portfolio of physiological and behavioural evidence now exists to support the case that fish feel pain and that this feeling matters. In the face of such evidence, any argument to the contrary based on the claim that fish ‘do not have the right sort of brain’ can no longer be called scientific. It is just obstinate.”
– John Webster, emeritus professor at the University of Bristol, Does she have feelings, too? The Telegraph, March 2, 2005:

Evidence that the term pain is applicable to fish comes from anatomical, physiological and behavioural studies whose results are very similar to those of studies on birds and mammals. The fact that fish are cold blooded does not prevent them from having a pain system and, indeed, such a system is valuable in preserving life and maximising the biological fitness of individuals. The receptor cells, neuronal pathways and specialised transmitter substances in the pain system are very similar in fish to those in mammals.
 – Farm Animal Welfare Council Report on the Welfare of Farmed Fish, September 1996

“The scientific literature is quite clear. Anatomically, physiologically and biologically, the pain system in fish is virtually the same as in birds and mammals…in animal welfare terms, you have to put fishing in the same category as hunting.”
– Dr Donald Broom, Professor of Animal Welfare at Cambridge University, Daily Telegraph, October 19, 1995

The Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s independent academy of science, published:

“...conclusive evidence indicating pain perception in fish,” concluding that pain produced “profound behavioural and physiological changes in fish over a prolonged period of time, comparable to those in higher mammals,”
– Do fishes have nociceptors? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, June 7, 2003

photo Robert Grillo

“In the light of evidence reviewed … it is recommended that, where considerations of welfare are involved, all vertebrate animals (i.e., mammals birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish) should be regarded as equally capable of suffering to some degree or another, without distinction between ‘warm-blooded’ and ‘cold blooded’ members.”
– The Medway Report, an independent report, written by a panel of experts, commissioned by the RSPCA, 1980

“We now know that fish actually are cognitively more competent than we thought before — some species of fish have very sophisticated forms of cognition…In our experiments we showed that if we hurt fish, they react, and then if we give them pain relief, they change their behavior, strongly indicating that they feel pain.”
– Victoria Braithwaite, Penn State professor of fisheries and biology, November 16, 2010

“I have argued that there is as much evidence that fish feel pain and suffer as there is for birds and mammals — and more than there is for human neonates and preterm babies.”
– Victoria Braithwaite, Do Fish Feel Pain? (p.153), 2010

“In many areas, such as memory, their cognitive powers match or exceed those of ‘higher’ vertebrates, including non-human primates. Best of all, given the central place memory plays in intelligence and social structures, fish not only recognize individuals but can also keep track of complex social relationships.”
– Culum Brown (Associate Professor, Macquarie University), Not Just a Pretty Face, New Scientist, June 12, 2004

“They have fantastic learning and memory capabilities. A lot of people think that fish behaviour is totally inflexible, like little swimming robots, but that’s absolutely not the case. They can learn all sorts of things and adjust their behaviour, if only we give them the chance to do it.”
– Culum Brown Catalyst, December 4, 2007

For further reading, please check out our other posts and pages on fish. The source for this content was generously contributed by Fishfeel.org

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