The latest chapter in the fish and pain debate has been opened by new research to be published by the Royal Society which presents evidence that fish may feel pain.
A team of scientists from the Roslin Institute and the University of Edinburgh carried out their study on rainbow trout and claim to have found that not only do the fish have the nervous system receptors to enable them to feel pain, but that they also appear to suffer.
The research team found nervous system receptors in the head of the fish and used electrophysiological recordings to record a response to damaging stimuli. They then injected the area with bee venom or acetic acid and noted the change in the fishes’ behaviour. The change in behaviour, they say, was not a simple reflex reaction (which would not support the idea that fish felt pain) but a similar response to that you would expect from a higher mammal.
“Fish demonstrated ‘rocking’ motion, strikingly similar to the kind of motion seen in stressed higher vertebrates like mammals, and the trout injected with acetic acid were also observed to rub their lips onto the gravel in their tank and on the tank walls. These do not appear to be reflex responses.” Said Dr. Lynn Sneddon, who led the research.
The conclusion of the study, that fish do feel pain, appears to contradict work published earlier this year by Dr. Rose, of the University of Wyoming. Dr. Rose’s study concluded that fish’s brains were not sufficiently developed to allow them to perceive or feel pain, and Dr. Rose has already reacted to the study, telling the Daily Telegraph that it: “in no way justifies a conclusion that these fish have a capacity for the conscious experience of pain”, and calling the study “anthropomorphic speculation”.
Anthropomorphic speculation or not, the study will add fuel to our ongoing debate with those who see angling as a cruel sport and adds impetus to calls for a concerted response from the angling community.
The full paper will be published today on FirstCite, the Royal Society’s online publication service and will be part of PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY: Biological Sciences – Vol. 270, No. 1520 to be published in June this year.
