I remember there was a study done on how to best slaughter swine (pigs).
The methods that were investigated included: a mechanical hit on the head, suffocation in CO2, and some other measures.
What was found was not only that the suffocation method caused significant stress in the animals, but also that the meat collected this way tasted way worse than meat collected through other slaughtering methods.
this could be relevant in this case: if fish suffocate slowly to death, meat producers might have a financial incentive to change that, to be able to sell better-quality meat, possibly at a higher price. anyways, it would make for good advertisement. that is why meat-producers (fish-producers) should take this seriously.
I have a crazy idea here. Now hear me out, this is gonna sound like a wackadoodle idea, but,… how about we don’t murder the animals? Crazy, I know.
But I’m hungry
eat non-cruel food. actual food. not animals. animals aren’t food for humans.
And the reason we still use CO2 slaughter instead of something like Nitrogen is because… They already have machines built for CO2 and just don’t want to pay the cost of changing practices.
Pure greed and laziness.
Also co2 is easier because you can fill a pit with it, nitrogen will just float about and disperse.
Stress is a hell of a drug
So what you’re saying is that Kurt Cobain was wrong and it’s actually not OK to eat fish because they do, in fact, have feelings?
Pretty sure he was being sarcastic
Ya, probably.
Something in the way…
So fishing for sport where they catch and release is basically torture by getting injured by the hook and then asphyxiating for however long they are out of water before being released.
Yup. But deep down we all kinda knew that, right? It was always fish torture for sport.
Now I’m wondering where noodling is on this scale.
Probably worse, unless they are less likely to pull the fish up to begin with unless being kept? I doubt the hook is anywhere near as traumatic as the rest of the process.
The stats on fish survival after being caught and released is actually pretty sad. If I remember correctly there was a lengthy study that showed a survival rate of only like 40%.
Suddenly all the cutesy indie life sims with fishing minigames don’t seem so wholesome any more
This article in particular is talking about when leaving fish in open air or ice water for the purpose of slaughter. Obviously that would hurt until the fish dies.
So long as you release them after a few minutes, they feel no pain whatsoever. Not even the hook through their mouth or gills.
And how do you know that?
Hah, I guess my sarcasm got missed on this comment! The premise that fish can’t feel pain because we don’t know for a certainty that they can is blatantly just mental gymnastics to justify the continued practice of a cruel hobby.
Sorry, classic case of Poe’s law! There are plenty of people who write what you said without any sarcasm, so without any indicators there’s no way to know.
Hah, I figured the second sentence was as parodically on-the-nose as I could manage without a satire indicator.
Sadly people literally write that and mean it. See the other reply:
They really don’t seem to be bothered by it.
Back when I used to fish a lot, they were out of the water for 30 seconds tops, and I caught the same fish multiple times within 15 minutes on several occasions. They really don’t seem to be bothered by it.
how would you like to get a hook through the cheek while moseying around the house? Yeah, didn’t think so.
They really don’t seem to be bothered by it
I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of vegans suddenly cried out in terror
Most of them die after that.
That’s a pretty bold claim, do you have a source for that?
https://myoutdoorbasecamp.com/catch-and-release-fishing/
Up to 40% about 5-6 days mortality rate.
Not some anecdotal bullshit happening within a day and they actually tagged fish. Not just guessing. These were actual studies.
Feeling like a fish out of water sounds much darker now.
Not in this article, or anywhere else is it currently known what a fish feels in relation to how humans feel pain. Including asphyxiation or hooks. We don’t currently have the capabilities to know how a fish interprets that stuff.
Well, IMO that’s actually pretty easy to determine. I assume the pain you feel being cut by a hook is simmiliar to pain I feel being cut because we react the same way. Basically every living thing reacts the same way to cuts, yelping, bleeding then flight/fight. Cats, dogs, animals of all sorts go through the same steps when they are cut so it’s a safe assumption their pain is simmiliar. And things that don’t react, such as cutting a techincally alive potato, aren’t really feeling pain. Idk maybe potatoes silently scream, can’t disprove it, but that’s just not the same as creature that flee from threats
So while we don’t know what a fish thinks about suffocating in air, it’s a reasonable assumption that it’s similar to humans suffocating in water, unpleasant. We both thrash around and do our best to breathe again. Suee, in a philosophical sense it’s immposible to know what other creatures think, even other humans that can verbally communicate, but that ignores some of the more obvious context clues.
If by “release” you mean “keep alive out of the water until they die in 22 minutes” then yeah, that’s a barbaric way to release D:
This is why net fishing is so problematic (apart from obvious environmental conserns and bycatch).
Stun your fish people. Don’t let their blood clot and lungs collapse while still conscious for multiple minutes. It’s cruel.
Let their lungs collapse?..
Yes. The g folds in front and everything shortens.
That’s why we call them gls.
You can also spike the brain of the fish. There’s stuff online about Ikejime which is supposed to be a way to quickly kill the fish to improve the quality of the meat. There’s resources online about it.
How about a new sport… Catch the fish under water and slap him a little, but not too hard?
Or how about just riding your rubber boat to where the fish are, then dropping a speaker and shouting “fuck you fish!” Threw the speaker? You could even hurt them intellectually!
it’s a lot manlier and cooler to stand in the water and grab the fish with your bare hands anyways, then you can look it in the face and tell it to fear god before letting it go
You could even do a Hakka and watch the fish pee themselves! But a gentle slaps would also be satiafrying.
Nice fluff piece, but it’s still complete speculation as to how fish “feel” when out of water or anything else. Currently, science can’t tell if a fish can hurt in the same sense that humans can.
If they come up with something dirt cheap to kill them faster, I’m all for it. No down side to give a fish the benefit of the doubt. This isn’t something I’m going to worry about, though.
Broadly scientific consensus is that at least bony fish likely experience pain in all of the same quantifiable ways that humans do. They exhibit avoidance learning, they have a central nervous system, nociceptors, opiod receptors, exhibit reduced avoidance responses to noxious stimuli when given analgesics… Etc.
The few scientists that have argued over the years that fish likely do not or cannot experience pain have been in the minority in the last 50 years, and each passing year finds decreased evidence for their claims. Dismissing it all as ‘complete speculation’ is… Very inaccurate.
Worth reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_fish
Also - there already is “something dirt cheap to kill them faster” - hardwood fish bat. Lasts forever and instantly stuns, and with a couple of strong well-aimed blows will definitely kill.
I’m sorry but that’s idiotic
The hell you mean? Of course it senses hurt. Why do you think humans are special cause we say ow?
What the fuck.
