Bryan Pratt’s works of fiction.

As for the fish issue … I guess pain and suffering comes with being at the lower end of the food chain. Most of the fishermen that I know (including my dad) actually have a lot of respect for the fish, and do everything they can to minimise any unecessary suffering. I am also quite sure that they already know that the fish don’t really enjoy having hooks through their mouths/cheeks/eye-sockets etc… They continue their fishing anyways, so I am not sure how any studies proving that fish feel pain will impact on their behaviours. And how would you police a ‘kindness to fish’ scheme anyway? Most fishermen would love to quickly and humanely kill the fish that they catch; they only throw them back because of the fishing laws. What on earth is the alternative? Remove the laws (that were put in place to protect the fishing populations) and make fishermen kill all catches? Ban fishing? Introduce kinder hook alternatives? MOS – do you have any ideas?

Why are vegetarians dubbed to be loonies and fanatics? Vegetarianism actually makes a lot of sense; purely in practical terms. It is a LOT cheaper. It can also be healthier (f you do it properly). You can grow your own food (more difficult to do with meat, unless you have a farm). There are less steps in the food harvesting/preparation process. Grains and vegeis don’t tend to go off as quickly as meat. Ecologically; you can feed far, far more people by eating the crops, instead of growing the crops to feed the cows that will then be eaten. Human digestive systems closely resemble those of herbivores; not carnivores, who tend to have short, straight, uncomplicated intestines (for quick and efficient processing of meat). Some people don’t really like meat. Some people feel bad about the suffering of the animals. Some people’s bodies work better if they don’t eat meat. Why on earth does being a vegetarian make somebody a ‘loony’ or a fanatic?? I find the anti-vego comments here really weird. What have you got against the food choices of others? Seriously – get some perspective. (p.s. – I am, myself, a raging carnivore … but I don’t think people who are vegetarians are, in any way, ‘weird’).

And can you answer the points made by Skidbladnir above?

mos said :

Hang on you vegephobes, I haven’t mentioned eating fish at all. My concern is Pratt’s/CT’s fiction and recreational angling.

50% of fish caught in Australia are thrown back. They are (according to recent experiment-based research and the RSPCA) being put through pain just for the fun of it.

If done to any other animals, this would be against the law.

So a more humane fishing method such as cyanide fishing would be more to your liking MOS?

colourful sydney racing identity said :

mos said :

Hang on you vegephobes, I haven’t mentioned eating fish at all. My concern is Pratt’s/CT’s fiction and recreational angling.quote]

Out of interest, and, in all sincerity, do you oppose eating fish?

Are you calling Mos a fishandchipocrit?

If we were meant to be vegetarian, why are animals made out of meat!?

Vegetarians are killing our forests.

mos said :

Hang on you vegephobes, I haven’t mentioned eating fish at all. My concern is Pratt’s/CT’s fiction and recreational angling.quote]

Out of interest, and, in all sincerity, do you oppose eating fish?

Hang on you vegephobes, I haven’t mentioned eating fish at all. My concern is Pratt’s/CT’s fiction and recreational angling.

50% of fish caught in Australia are thrown back. They are (according to recent experiment-based research and the RSPCA) being put through pain just for the fun of it.

If done to any other animals, this would be against the law.

Complain to P.E.T.A.!!!!!!!!!

They would be offended that anyone would think fish experience pain.

BTW: P.E.T.A. stands for People Eating Tasty Animals

Pain or no pain, the easiest way to reduce human consumption of fish is to reduce the number of humans.

Human populations used to be controlled by famine, plague and war. Since we’ve improved farming practises, medical services and made a habit of being friends with our neighbours, humans have turned into a plague upon the planet.

Perhaps it’s time to start developing a taste for long pig?

I’m glad fish feel pain. I’m happy that disturbs me slightly. The pleasures of good food, like all the best vices, need an undercurrent of shame and revulsion to give you the full spectrum of experience.

I find that the diference between extremist vego-mentalists and normal people is that normal people, by and large, don’t really give a crap what vego-mentalists do and don’t eat. Whilst on the otherhand, vego-mentalistsare forever carrying on about how naughty we all are for recognising that the perfect accompanyment for pinot noir is lamb.

I notice that there’s a lot of indignation about whether or not Dr Pratt can come up with the reports he relies on – one wonders if the same sort of pressure will be placed on the WWF to release their study that shows there’s no appreciable diference in the environmental foot-print of a regular sensible diet when compared to vego-mentalism.

I often wonder what the more extreme vegetarians know about nature. Animals do not die peacefully in their sleep surrounded by loved ones. If not consumed by humans, animals are consumed by something else.

For most their death is either savage and quick or slow and painful. It is never pretty.

No I haven’t simply ‘cherry-picked’, Juice Terry. If you did take some time to have even a quick look via the web you’d find it’s basically one scientist (Dr James Rose) arguing that theoretically, fish cannot feel pain.

But you’d also find at least three pieces of research done over the last 7 years indicating that they probably can:

• In April 2003, a research team from the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh found “conclusive evidence of pain perception in fish”. The lead researcher, Dr Lynne Sneddon, said the team’s work “fulfils the criteria for animal pain”.

• In September 2009, Scientific America reported that goldfish “do experience pain consciously, rather than simply reacting with a reflex”.

• Most recently, Norwegian School of Veterinary Science doctoral student Janicke Nordgreen studied nociception and pain in fish and concluded that it is very likely they can feel pain. (Reported in Science Daily, 15 Jan 2010).

A book is to be published next month titled “Do Fish Feel Pain?” by biologist, Prof. Victoria Braithwaite. According to a preview, “She asks why the question of pain in fish has not been raised earlier, indicating our prejudices and assumptions; and argues that the latest and growing scientific evidence would suggest that we should widen to fish the protection currently given to birds and mammals”.

All this means that Pratt’s statements are unsupportable.

caf said :

Skidbladnir: That seems like an awfully high barrier, given that it’s not even possible to prove that my experience of pain is equivalent to yours (I can’t even be sure that you really exist!)

Yes, the bar is high.
But you don’t need to overcome it, just make an effort towards approaching it (ie: make a solid argument that supports and advances your theory with facts), also known as “scientific progress” or “improving a theory”.
That is prettymuch the point of critical rationalism in modern scientific theory, as distinct from the exercise in logical positivism and inductive logic shown by MOS above.

You can at least communicate your experience of pain to me, and as a conscious human who has a fair number of scars from doing brave\hilarious\stupid things, I’m pretty likely to have experienced similar sensations.

Making the same set of assertions (object feels anything, are conscious of exposed nerve stimulus beyond ‘reaction’ reflexes, consciously experience similar sensations to human ‘pain’) when talking about fish in general, on the other hand, requires a fairly large set of assumptions and then a leap of faith (aka: not good science) until there are empirical facts to base assertions on.
Extending hypotheses like ‘potentially trout feel pain’ into ‘all fish feel pain’ is a further bit of logic requiring support.

Personally I don’t much care for questions of if fish feel pain (Assuming they feel pain, you could probably minimise it by put them on ice post-catch, then suffocate or behead and fillet it once it has been sedated\anaesthetised), I just hate it when the meat-is-murder brigade fail at logic but still me to be on their side as a result.

I do remember reading a historical transcript of some Nth American fishery that had collapsed under commercial fishing, from ~ early colonial report, saying that (whatever fishies they were on about) were so numerous that you could hardly row a boat, all gone now

Probably the Grand banks off Newfoundland.

thats not the question Spinact / Skidblandir- if they feel pain do they like it?

Im guessing NOT or is there a positive evolutionary trigger for liking having your face ripped off or being suffocated in a net? perhaps the seas teem with masochistic critters?

Guessing that in a fish’s own experience- pain is generally experienced as unpleasant or are you suggesting that the fish makes a rational decision, based on you know, an internal monologue considering the ‘fishequivalentofpainbutnotnecessarilypainful’ stimuli to prompt a reaction

shouldnt matter too much anyway for your favorite dinner species, what with many fisheries massively overfished,

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/293/5530/629

or scare the crap out of yourself and look into this: fk me 5% of natural numbers remaining
http://www.collapse.com.au

anyone have any good recipies for algae? or could we just eat wheat-bix for a couple of years…

I do remember reading a historical transcript of some Nth American fishery that had collapsed under commercial fishing, from ~ early colonial report, saying that (whatever fishies they were on about) were so numerous that you could hardly row a boat, all gone now

This wories me x50 times more than the carbon/global warming theories- its not like you can see what is going on from your own experience in the oceans of the world- just how much damage has been done and what is needed to recover?

Skidbladnir: That seems like an awfully high barrier, given that it’s not even possible to prove that my experience of pain is equivalent to yours (I can’t even be sure that you really exist!)

Anyway, I think I recognise desperate rationalisation when I see it. Much better to follow Aurelius’s example, and directly confront the moral questions that we encounter, than to wish them away.

last time i put a hook through a live bait it seemed not to like it to much

We’re all missing the more important question: If fish can feel pain, do they remember it?

but it’s all ok – he’s just a pratt.

It’s cruel to put lobsters in boiling to kill them, much kinder to drown them in fresh water, not that I eat shellfish.

Go make some headway into reducing things like your p-zombie issues (ie: fish react to harmful events and respond to direct stimulation of exposed nerve endings like you would expect, but how do you know fish actually feel anything let alone extend that line of logic all the way up to feeling pain?) or read up on qualia and then convince the scientific community that the human experience of ‘pain’ is the same as that experienced by the fish, hence using the same word to describe both.
(Good luck interviewing your aquatic friends, though.)

Information transmission and sensation relay structures in the fish nervous system may have similar features to those within humans and provoke similar reactions, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are _entirely equivalent_ or perform their function in a totally comparable fashion.
There’s probably another research project right there, if anyone wants it.

I’ll side with the esteemed expert over random blogger\attention seeking CT letter writer on this one, but let MOS get back to worrying about how the grass feels about the approaching winter.

MOS, you have merely cherrypicked three studies that back what you want to believe. I don’t have the time nor the will to research it myself, but I think it’s a fair bet that there is truth to Dr Pratt’s assertion that:

“…the vast body of scientific opinion is that fish do not feel pain. That’s not just my opinion, it’s that of independent scientists worldwide…”

My opinion on the matter? Obviously fish can feel *something*, they have a central nervous system after all. Whether or not that what they feel can be construed as ‘pain’ is another argument.

Now go harrass some mung beans.

basketcase said :

And what about plants? It has been shown that plants feel pain when severing occurs.

I’d call you a troll but seeing as the rest of your post hinges on this claim, I’m just going to say that Backster has been discredited and repeat what MythBusters said about their similar experiment: “If it’s not repeatable, it’s not science.”

I’m not here to start an argument – I am trying to constructive, thoughtful and positive – I’d just like to point out that you don’t actually need to consume animals, it’s not a ‘must’.

Everyone has some level of right to choose what is and isn’t acceptable behavior to them. Not everyone thinks it’s perfectly acceptable to inflict pain on some other creature in order to feed themselves.

Very relevant and quite riveting podcast on Counterpoint on ABC Radio National – expert on fish cognition.
He’s nicknamed the “fish whisperer”!

fish are much, much smarter than we give them credit for …

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/stories/2010/2833050.htm

All God’s creatures have their place – right next to the chips and veges.

Who cares – since when does having an estabished point of view stop anyone from posting here?

Mike

As I could never be buggered writing to the CT, here is my rant

I know you are a vego and love animals. I love animals too. They taste great. In future though, can you only send a letter to the CT mail page once every 6 months rather than fortnightly. Because of you, I now check the letter writers name before reading the letter…

Thanks

Growling Ferret

As has already been noted, fish have to feel pain to be able to react. The real question though is whether it’s acceptable to inflict pain on some other creature in order to feed ourselves. The answer of course is yes. Otherwise, we can stop eating right now.
All those who get hung up on the issue of inflicting pain to provide our meals need to get over their self-hatred and guilt, and just accept the basic fact of existence: to live, we must consume other animals and plants that lived previously.

basketcase said :

And what about plants? It has been shown that plants feel pain when severing occurs. Obviously we will all have to stop eating to placate the loonies and their bent and twisted minds.

The only truly moral diet is to photosynthesize.

basketcase said :

And what about plants? It has been shown that plants feel pain when severing occurs.

And what about nuts?

Well known Canberra vegetarian nut,Mike O’S…. (MOS), just can’t help himself, can he.

Onya Mike! Left the Canberra Times letter columns for greener pastures now have we?

The actual question is do fish have the same sort of emotions about pain as we do…
Have a read of this – http://www.howstuffworks.com/outdoor-activities/fishing/fish-conservation/responsible-fishing/fish-pain.htm

basketcase said :

It has been shown that plants feel pain when severing occurs.

Is there a source for this? Bonus marks for papers appearing in peer reviewed journals.

basketcase said :

we all know the scientific community have their own barrows to push and so bend the evidence.

We do?

basketcase said :

“Scientific evidence” is useless and irrelevant here.

How do you figure?

Of course fish don’t feel pain. Last time I caught one it voiced no complaint at my dragging it out of the water and cutting its head off. Infact, it seemed to quite enjoy the experience…

Sounds like a piece of nutjobbery to me. Mind you, at the other end of the looney spectrum you get the vegetablearians/vego-nazis that still eat chicken and Sea Kittens but harp on at you about it inhumanity of eating rare steak.

The idea is fish feel no pain so we feel no guilt

Seems to me like the ability to feel pain is a basic survival tool.

I reckon “fish don’t feel pain” has the ring of an old wives tale.

And what about plants? It has been shown that plants feel pain when severing occurs. Obviously we will all have to stop eating to placate the loonies and their bent and twisted minds.

What are loonies going to do about nature where big fish eat small fish, where the bigger and faster animals eat the smaller and slower animals?

It’s about time the loonies moved on and realize we all live in the same animal kingdom where dog eats dog. (watch politicians for lessons)

Scientific opinion has nothing to do with it and besides, we all know the scientific community have their own barrows to push and so bend the evidence. “Scientific evidence” is useless and irrelevant here.

I use to love the spicy sole at Portias Place in Kingston. But wasnt on the menu last time I went there.

Depends on how you define pain.

They taste good though….especially battered

What’s he a doctor of? Nutjobbery? Course they can feel pain, they’ve got a central nervous system just like us. That’s why they fight, to get away from the pain in their mouth otherwise they would just lie there dumbly and let you reel them in. I used to be into fly fishing in my teens but I’ve haven’t been fishing in years, hurting fish for fun isn’t much fun.

On the other hand, “it’s ok to eat fish
Cause they haven’t any feelings” – Kurt Cobain.

I have always though it hypocritical that laws in the country protect the rights of animals from all sorts of abuse, but allow for the pulling of fish from the water using a metal barb through the side of there mouths. But then I don’t fish.

misrepresent “the vast body of scientific opinion” while denigrating those who disagree with him is unprofessional and unacceptable.

It seems to work for Piers Akerman and Andrew Bolt, and their readership is far wider and more influential than a local fishing writers…

Pain or no pain… They sure taste good!

It’s not really news that the Canberra Times has published wrong and biased information again (or refused to publish a view it didn’t want). But this site would be very active if we all complained every time.

That aside, any creature with a central nervous system feels pain, sadly. It’s a bit of a biological fact that only the ignorant would ignore.

Maybe we should eat only animals bred for eating – like the hitchhikers’ cow.