Let’s Get Fishes Off the Hook

Yes, they DO have feelings.

Surprise – although I’ve lived in the United States for almost 45 years and consider myself quite proficient as far as my English language skills are concerned, I just learned that it is “fish” when talking about several members of the same species, but “fishes” when referring to more than one species. 20 salmon = 20 fish, but 5 trout and 5 sharks = 10 fishes. Just had to mention this. Okay, so, here goes:

Of all the misunderstood and therefore mistreated creatures, fishes must rank right at the top of the line. Some people don’t think they’re animals: I had somebody trying to convince me to eat fish, although I’m vegan, because – well, a fish isn’t an animal. I was so flabbergasted that I forgot to ask what they were supposed to be. They certainly don’t grow on trees. 

Just imagine: you're swimming around happily, you barely feel your body weight because of the water’s buoyancy, maybe you’re part of a school and your buddies who swim next to you give you a sense of security. Suddenly you’re all violently thrown together, the water rushes by as you’re being pulled up, and then the weight of the others crushes you as you’re thrown on some hard surface. And you can’t breathe any more. You gasp for air, but without water your gills collapse and you slowly suffocate. That’s what it must feel when lots of fishes are caught in huge nets and dropped from high onto a fishing vessel.

Or you like to swim by yourself, in a lake maybe or up a river, and you see something that looks like a tasty bug floating in front of you – so you catch it. A searing pain shoots through your mouth, and something pulls you up, out of the water, into the air which you can’t breathe with your gills. Again, you slowly suffocate, while the hurt drives you mad.

This is how Dr. Culum Brown, a leading researcher in the field of fish cognition who is based at Macquarie University in Sydney/Australia answered when somebody asked low long it takes a fish to suffocate to death: 

It depends on the species. If you landed a tuna or mackerel, they'd be dead in 10 min. It's not a pretty way to go. The oxygen can still cross the gill membrane while it is wet, but it won't be enough to keep the fish alive. So unlike drowning in humans, where we die in about 4-5 minutes because we can't extract any oxygen from water, fish can go on for much longer. It's a prolonged slow death most of the time, which is pretty horrible, when you think about it.¹

Oh, but maybe they DON’T feel. There is this myth, apparently proliferated by pet stores selling  goldfish in tiny bowls,  that fish can’t remember anything for more than five seconds. They swim back and forth, and when they reach one end they already forgot where they came from, and when they turn around,  it’s all new. Sort of like Groundhog Day in reverse. Except it’s not true, it’s a silly myth. 

Image Credit: Yang Wewe

Most pet owners roll their eyes when they hear that scientists have confirmed that cats and dogs have emotions and can feel pain. Duh! That’s so obvious, isn’t it. But chickens or rabbits or pigs? Yes, they look cute when they’re babies, but we’re also used to eating them, so – there is a certain distance, a lack of empathy. When it comes to fish, this reaction is enhanced multiple times. On a somewhat semi-conscious level, fish are considered to be less feeling, less conscious, less intelligent than other vertebrates. One can’t cuddle them, some people strongly dislike their smell, they literally live in a different element from us humans – our capacity for empathy with another creature seems to evaporate incrementally, the further away this creature is from our center. From the limiting and limited perspective of our ego-consciousness. From the “Me, Me, Me” center of the universe. 

It can’t be stated often enough that we humans have to make a concerted effort to step out of our little, flat circle and consciously embrace the “beingness” of all the big and small entities around us, because we are part of their circles as well. It’s really similar to adding a dimension to a flat world: all of a sudden, it opens up enormously. I found an image which may illustrate what I mean:

See how all these circles meet at a center? Now imagine the figure to be a doughnut, and the circles actually are one endless spiral that’s in constant motion. What is in the center moves to the outside and vice versa. Maybe that’s a model for the Universe.

What does this have to do with fishes? It means that we as humans have to make an effort. We have to internalize that we share this world with them,  that they are as much entitled to it as we are, that they are beings, not resources to be exploited.

Maybe it helps to know what scientists have discovered about them. Yes, they feel pain. Yes, they experience fear. And yes, they have loving relationships. But they’re also intelligent;  here are a few facts that show how smart they are: They

• can "perform multiple complex tasks simultaneously" due to cerebral lateralization, a trait that was until recently thought to be uniquely human;

• can recall the location of objects using feature cues, a capacity developed by humans at approximately the age of six;

• "have excellent long-term memories";

• "cooperate with one another and show signs of Machiavellian intelligence such as cooperation and reconciliation"; and

• can use tools, another "in a long list of skills that was supposed to be unique to humans." (See previous footnote).

But there is more. Giant manta rays have passed the mirror test, which scientists use to determine whether a non-human animal has the self-awareness to recognize a reflection as themselves. The manta rays’ interaction with the mirror “...shows evidence for behavioral responses to a mirror that are prerequisite of self-awareness and which has been used to confirm self-recognition in apes.”²

Many marine animals form symbiotic relationships; for example, Hawaiian cleaner wrasses, which are tiny, swim into the gills or mouths of bigger fishes and remove parasites or irritating food rests. The wrasses offer service stations, and the better a wrasse does his or her job, the more customers wait in line! You can read about other symbiotic relationships here. 

Another amazing creature, the frillfin goby, clearly debunks the short-memory myth. They hide in rocky tide pools at low tide. When they feel threatened by a lurking predator they leap up and jump to another tide pool. They don’t miss it and land on the dry rock because they’re capable of cognitive mapping: they memorize the tide pool layout when they swim over it at high tide, and they need to do this only once, and can remember the topography for at least 40 days. Quite amazing!³

There are many more amazing findings concerning fish and their behavior. The convict cichlids, for example, are monogamous and spend up to six weeks caring for their eggs, larvae and then free-swimming juveniles.⁴ Scientists are working hard to establish a better understanding of fish: that they can feel pain, that they are smart, that they form relationships with each other. However, it’s difficult to read about the experiments necessary to establish these facts; in laboratories, fish get injected with painful substances. They’re kept out of the water to measure their stress level. Female convict cichlids were tested whether the separation from their mates would make them depressed. I’m glad that scientists finally establish that fishes are not things or disposable objects, but rather sentient and feeling beings. But it doesn’t speak all that well for humanity that we have to torture and hurt animals in order to learn this, does it. 

If even one person who reads this will think twice before eating another fish, I’d be so happy!

1. Fish Are Smart

2. Do elasmobranchs have self-awareness? (Behind paywall)

3. Wikipedia: Frillfin Goby

4. Fish Break-Ups