Really helpful new book - Do Fish Feel Pain

[davestocker]

story here Do fish have feelings too? It's a slippery question for science | Mail Online

 

[geoffmaynard]

Looks interesting Dave. Hard to comment until you've read it but I've asked them for a review copy.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

Looks interesting Dave. Hard to comment until you've read it but I've asked them for a review copy.

Yes, difficult to comment until and unless one reads the book.

However, the newspaper article is there to be read and I think it is very important that recreational Anglers distance themselves immediately from the commercial fishermen. The comments about how those fish are ' left to die on deck etc.' need to be challenged from the recreational anglers standpoint!

Angling Trust, care to comment either here on FM or better still officially?

 

[davestocker]

Please note, before anyone mistakes it for an endorsement, that 'really helpful' is intended to be heavily ironic!

 

[Andy M]

Well I think it will be useful if it is a balanced review of the evidence for and against and this is what she claims in the intro I read on Amazon. Not also the title is posed as a question. It is unfortunate, however, that the publishers chose a bunch of shad type lures with big hooks sticking out to grace the cover. A must read I would say for all those that don't mind a bit of scientific gobledegook but as sure as apples is apples it is going to get a lot of misquoting and misinterpretation from certain quarters!

 

[klik2change]

Quoted from the text: "Using two chemicals - bee venom and vinegar - Dr Braithwaite has shown that fish which have been injected with these 'painful' stimulants around the mouth react very differently to those that have not - rubbing the affected area and losing interest in their food until the poison had worn off.
When the results were published in 2003, they created a media storm. The angling community, for one, was certainly displeased."

Many of you will remember this episode. I certainly do. the point to remember is that Braithwaite injected the fish with bee venom and vinegar. The aim was to provoke a reaction. Poisons usually do provoke a reaction don't they?

 

[Keith M]

Right from the very first sentence the writer shows how biased they are, ie:

"To many, the notion that we should care about the suffering of fish seems absurd"

Words to instill the notion of pain??
Hang on a minute, most of the worlds leading fish biologists agree that fish don't have the ability to feel pain in the same context as more advanced Mammals therefore using the words the suffering of fish seems very absurd in the least.

"Do Fish Feel Pain? was written not by a militant vegan, but by a dispassionate marine biologist - who eats fish.
But Victoria Braithwaite's conclusion is particularly surprising, because we are not used to thinking about fish as sentient at all."

I remember last year we were told that one of the promonant "PETA anti angling activists" was a Marine Biologist called Victoria.

Is this the same so called dispassionate marine biologist who wrote this book I wonder???

 

[geoffmaynard]

Wiki says:

Sentient beings is a technical term in Buddhist discourse. Broadly speaking, it denotes beings with consciousness

?? cod ??

 

[coelacanth]

I haven't been able to find any evidence yet that she herself is a "bogey", but certainly her work lends itself to manipulation and misinterpretation by the swivel-eyed and deluded, including the "r"SPCA.
I've no doubt that there are people embedded within the academic community who look for opportunities to give validity to the claims of animal rights (just like any industry, research which ostensibly validates claims is vital). She's done some well-regarded work and been lauded for some of it by bodies who I'd expect would be able to spot a hostile.

There's part of an interview she gave to an Australian channel on this link AM - British study finds fish have feelings , there are some interesting statements and replies to questions there, for example...

MATT PEACOCK: If you had bee venom injected into your face, or acid rubbed on it, you'd react to the pain, and that says Edinburgh University's Dr Victoria Braithwaite is just what the fish did.

That's a toxic substance, very different to a simple stimulus IMO. Of course an organism will have a response to toxic substances, anglers know all about that thanks to United Utilities and others. If I cut myself at work in a minor way I usually don't notice until I wonder why there's blood on my keyboard/desk/mug/wherever. Totally different to if I nick myself while chopping chillies, or I get a weak acid or peroxide into an existing minor skin wound at work (the disposable gloves aren't always to hand...).

VICTORIA BRAITHWAITE: The way we perceive pain will be very different to the way that a fish can. But I think there is enough information out there in fish biology now to know that they're remarkably complex and very capable organisms

Which means it may not be what we recognise as "pain" at all. It would be very counter-productive for any organism not to have a response mechanism to potential threats, doesn't mean they suffer "pain" as we know it with all the associated emotional and physiological effects. As for complex and capable organisms, that's obvious, they've been around for hundreds of millions of years, there are more fish (both species and individuals) than all other vertebrates put togther.

VICTORIA BRAITHWAITE: I was going to say they seem to have a capacity to have, to beware aware of the environment and to have awareness, you know, at a fish level

The key thing here is "at a fish level". Of course they have! They are aware of threats, food sources, reproductive needs, but none of that requires cogniscance or "self-awareness". Virtually every mobile multi-cellular organism that I can think of has those same basic awarenesses to some degree.

 

[davestocker]

Maybe it's only Scottish fish that have such 'feelings'?