Fish and pain

[UndercoverElephant]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8183547.stm


"We get knocked by the anti-anglers who say that fish feel pain, and I believe some university bods have proved that some fish do feel pain, but until you sit me down next to a carp and it says to me ' I feel immense pain', then it's an open-ended question."


??

ETA:


Big carp are extremely clever creatures and they know full well what it means when they see a hook and like with food on the end.


How the h*ll do these people know this? I know nothing about fishing, but..?

[Denver]

It has always seemed a leap to me to assume fish don't feel pain in their lips. It seems that evolution would discourage that, to the point that I'd expect to assume they did feel pain until proven otherwise.

If you're going to catch a fish and kill it, lip pain arguments are not an issue. If you're going to play catch and release, fishers who have claimed they dont feel pain I've always felt were just trying to assuage their conscience or justify their fun.

[Frank Newgent]

It has always seemed a leap to me to assume fish don't feel pain in their lips.

That's not funny. My fish died that way.

[godless dave]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/8183547.stm


"We get knocked by the anti-anglers who say that fish feel pain, and I believe some university bods have proved that some fish do feel pain, but until you sit me down next to a carp and it says to me ' I feel immense pain', then it's an open-ended question."


That guys sounds like an idiot. There's no question fish feel pain. How much pain they feel when a hook pierces the outside of their mouth might be an open-ended question (which a study of nerve response in that tissue would shed some light on), but the hook sometimes goes into softer tissue anyway.

I'm an angler and I feel no compulsion to lie to myself about the pain the fish, and the bait, feel.

[LightningStrike]

This fish loved being caught. It was landed over sixty times, it must have loved it. It wanted to repeat the experience and why?

Entering into the arms of the beloved.

[Jeff Corey]

Fish feel pain well enough to be able to learn a response to avoid getting an electric shock .http://www.jstor.org/pss/1419268

[Apathia]

Yeah, I know, Cetaceans aren't fish, but let's up the pain with this:
http://www.savejapandolphins.org/

[bjornart]

Doubting that fish have pain receptors and react to pain is silly. My question, in two parts, is a) A fish brain is a much simpler device than mine, so is a fishes experience comparable to my experience of pain? b) Should I care, even if it is?

[Soapy Sam]

Why would anyone want to catch fish in the first place?

[Simon39759]

Being in fish research, I am supposed to keep an eye on this kind of issue.

At this point the consensus is that there are evidences that fish do feel pain, at least to an extent.
-They have the two nerve types normally associated with the transmission of pain.
-They have the molecular markers involved with pain in mammals: dopamine, FMRFamide
and substance P.
-Behaviourally, they have been shown to be able to learn and, when given a choice, avoid putting themselves in painful or dangerous situations.

However, they do not have a neocortex which is, in mammals, associated with self and the perception of pain.
Probably, in the teleencephalon.

Now the experience may be different from us, it probably is, but they probably, given the evidences at this point, experience a mechanism comparable to ours...

[godless dave]

This fish loved being caught. It was landed over sixty times, it must have loved it. It wanted to repeat the experience and why?

Entering into the arms of the beloved.

The fish welcomed the anglers as liberators. There were parades and flowers.

[godless dave]

Why would anyone want to catch fish in the first place?

1. It's fun.

2. Fresh fish tastes fantastic.

[Emerson Street]

They're Fish, who cares?

[plumjam]

I hope this thread isn´t beginning to flounder

[Jeff Corey]

Perch on this.

[godless dave]

I knew the pun squad would show up eventually. Can we at least try to scale it back for this thread?

[shawmutt]

That guys sounds like an idiot. There's no question fish feel pain. How much pain they feel when a hook pierces the outside of their mouth might be an open-ended question (which a study of nerve response in that tissue would shed some light on), but the hook sometimes goes into softer tissue anyway.

I'm an angler and I feel no compulsion to lie to myself about the pain the fish, and the bait, feel.

Amen.

[Piscivore]

Pain adds flavour.

[Kevin_Lowe]

Shame on you for spoiling a perfectly good fish pun thread with your trolling!

[gentlehorse]

Why would anyone want to catch fish in the first place?

To get chicks?

[rocketdodger]

I think people are missing the issue here.

It isn't about whether fish feel pain, it is about the amount of suffering pain causes in a fish.

Even if fish feel pain, it is not necessarily the case that it causes them something analagous to what we consider "suffering," since that seems to be dependent upon a slew of other cognitive capabilities -- that fish don't necessarily have.

[godless dave]

I think people are missing the issue here.

It isn't about whether fish feel pain, it is about the amount of suffering pain causes in a fish.

Even if fish feel pain, it is not necessarily the case that it causes them something analagous to what we consider "suffering," since that seems to be dependent upon a slew of other cognitive capabilities -- that fish don't necessarily have.


I'm not sure suffering requires any higher cognitive abilities.

[Piscivore]

Shame on you for spoiling a perfectly good fish pun thread with your trolling!

Please; it was floundering.

[Frank Newgent]

Even if fish feel pain, it is not necessarily the case that it causes them something analagous to what we consider "suffering," since that seems to be dependent upon a slew of other cognitive capabilities -- that fish don't necessarily have.

Why do the carp at my outlet pipe respond to the sight of a can of Drāno® then?

[Audible Click]

Everyone should quit carping about the rampant punning.

[Modified]

Quote:
Big carp are extremely clever creatures and they know full well what it means when they see a hook and like with food on the endHow the h*ll do these people know this? I know nothing about fishing, but..?

If you throw a worm next to a bunch of floating weeds under which carp are hiding, one will eat it fairly quickly. If you cast a worm with a hook in it to the same place, a carp will stare at it, sometimes for ten minutes, then usually decide to eat it anyway. So they seem to know that something is not quite right, but I don't think they know what a hook and line really are.

[rocketdodger]

I'm not sure suffering requires any higher cognitive abilities.

Neither am I sure -- but I think it is more likely than not.

For instance, do you think an earthworm can suffer? What about a nematode? What about a flatworm?

At some point, mere reaction becomes pain, and at some other point mere pain becomes suffering.

[jsfisher]

Everyone should quit carping about the rampant punning.

Even a piker like me can see the thread is floundering. Cod! We just have too many people who gopher the cheap pun. Herring some of them, it is no wonder this thread smelt so funny. Whether it is a grouper individual at work, can we at least scale back? Maybe we can just skate past the bottom feeders for that occasional ray of sunshine post?

Holy mackerel!! Halibut we just close the thread and move on?

[Elaedith]

Even a piker like me can see the thread is floundering. Cod! We just have too many people who gopher the cheap pun. Herring some of them, it is no wonder this thread smelt so funny. Whether it is a grouper individual at work, can we at least scale back? Maybe we can just skate past the bottom feeders for that occasional ray of sunshine post?

Holy mackerel!! Halibut we just close the thread and move on?

Then there would be no plaice to discuss this.

[Beerina]

It has always seemed a leap to me to assume fish don't feel pain in their lips. It seems that evolution would discourage that, to the point that I'd expect to assume they did feel pain until proven otherwise.

If you're going to catch a fish and kill it, lip pain arguments are not an issue. If you're going to play catch and release, fishers who have claimed they dont feel pain I've always felt were just trying to assuage their conscience or justify their fun.

I thought it was more an argument their brains are too simple to be conscious.

[UndercoverElephant]

I'm not sure suffering requires any higher cognitive abilities.

Depends what you mean by "suffering"...

[Cactus Wren]

I thought I'd just skate on by.

[shawmutt]

This thread jumped the shark.

[Dogdoctor]

Fish have nociceptors that respond to tissue damage. I wouldn't say that what they feel is very similar to what we think of pain but none the less they feel something. Is there a conscious recognition of something like pain? I don't see how they have proved this. It's difficult to interpret the actions of an animal.

[RandFan]

Why would anyone want to catch fish in the first place?Humans evolved to experience an intense sense of euphoria and well being by hunting and fishing. It's not as good as sex (IMO) but it's damn close and it doesn't have any of the side effects of drugs.

[Kuko 4000]

Being in fish research, I am supposed to keep an eye on this kind of issue.

At this point the consensus is that there are evidences that fish do feel pain, at least to an extent.
-They have the two nerve types normally associated with the transmission of pain.
-They have the molecular markers involved with pain in mammals: dopamine, FMRFamide
and substance P.
-Behaviourally, they have been shown to be able to learn and, when given a choice, avoid putting themselves in painful or dangerous situations.

However, they do not have a neocortex which is, in mammals, associated with self and the perception of pain.
Probably, in the teleencephalon.

Now the experience may be different from us, it probably is, but they probably, given the evidences at this point, experience a mechanism comparable to ours...


Hi Simon, thanks for your input. I'm in the middle of an art project which deals with fish and pain. I found this part of the Wikipedia article very interesting, would you mind commenting on it, to me it seems to strongly back up the idea that fish do feel pain in a similar / comparable way to us:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pain_in_fish#Research_findings

In a 2009 paper, Janicke Nordgreen from the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science, Joseph Garner from Purdue University, and others, published research which concluded that goldfish do feel pain, and that their reactions to pain are much like those of humans.[20] "There has been an effort by some to argue that a fish's response to a noxious stimuli is merely a reflexive action, but that it didn't really feel pain," Garner said. "We wanted to see if fish responded to potentially painful stimuli in a reflexive way or a more clever way."[21] The fish were divided into two groups, one given morphine and the other saline. They were then subjected to unpleasant temperatures. The fish that were given saline subsequently acted with defensive behaviours, indicating anxiety, wariness and fear, whereas those given morphine did not.[21] Nordgreen said that the behavioural differences they found showed that fish feel both reflexive and cognitive pain. "The experiment shows that fish do not only respond to painful stimuli with reflexes, but change their behavior also after the event," Nordgreen said. "Together with what we know from experiments carried out by other groups, this indicates that the fish consciously perceive the test situation as painful and switch to behaviors indicative of having been through an aversive experience."[21]


It seems to me that the evidence is leaning towards this more and more. The implications of studies like this could be huge if / when more broadly accepted.

[Nosi]

I hope this thread isn´t beginning to flounder

Too Punny!:D

[Nosi]

I think people are missing the issue here.

It isn't about whether fish feel pain, it is about the amount of suffering pain causes in a fish.

Even if fish feel pain, it is not necessarily the case that it causes them something analagous to what we consider "suffering," since that seems to be dependent upon a slew of other cognitive capabilities -- that fish don't necessarily have.

Compared to bears and other predators, human anglers are rather humane killers.

[Nosi]

Even a piker like me can see the thread is floundering. Cod! We just have too many people who gopher the cheap pun. Herring some of them, it is no wonder this thread smelt so funny. Whether it is a grouper individual at work, can we at least scale back? Maybe we can just skate past the bottom feeders for that occasional ray of sunshine post?

Holy mackerel!! Halibut we just close the thread and move on?

You made me spit my coffee! But then it was going a little fishy...:D

[Darth Rotor]

Why would anyone want to catch fish in the first place?

They make for tasty dinner.

[Steve001]

Perch on this.

Did you know a perch is equal to 10 feet to as much a 25 feet