STUDY SUGGESTS THAT FISH DO FEEL PAIN

I have long been an advocate to halting all forms of recreational fishing (for more on this unique point of view, visit my "The Case Against Recreational Fishing" site/page by clicking here). Well, CNN is reporting this morning that scientists in Scotland have found that fish do feel pain and stress. For more on this development, click here.

Having this new knowledge in hand, why would anyone proactively choose to intentionally harm another living creature for his or her own recreational experience? Help me to understand why millions and millions of otherwise caring individuals continue to participate in catch-and-release fishing.

I was going to play devil's advocate and use the Kurt Cobain defense, "It's OK to eat fish because they don't have any feelings." Then, I realized that he was singing about EATING the fish. So, that blew that arguement out of the water.

So, that moves me to my baseball defense. I think that baseball is incredibly painful and millions of people think that it's recreational. Think about how many bugs lose their homes to print gameday circulars that never get sold or read. Think about the forests that we cut down for the ridiculous volume that baseball takes up in the daily sports section. Think about the pain that the dinosaurs experienced when they died, now baseball players use dino remains (in the form of high-tech plastics) to protect their heads. Ok, so that arguement needs a little work.

The point I'm getting at here is that most recreational 'sports' could be viewed as having a negative impact on senient beings around us. Logic would suggest that we would/should only particpate in those activities that are benefitial to continued survival...and killing off little critters in the woods to make baseball bats or *INSERT SPORTING GOOD HERE* isn't the logical way to create a safety net for continued, thriving life on this planet. Recreation is not logical, simply.

I have an agenda...baseball sucks. I'm sure that when I'm weathly I will sponsor a study that connects baseball with the destruction of some random ecosystem, in an effort to kill the sport. Every study has an agenda and I'm a cynic. Who funded the fish feel pain study and why?

I was going to email you this story yesterday. I'm not exactly sure that anyone really needed to do a study on this. How could fish NOT feel pain??? They are living creatures, after all... (Duh?)

I'm with Christina -- I can't believe someone thought fish might possibly not feel pain. Typical human superiority complex. And the fact that funding was required to determine this is ludicrous.

I think there's a big difference between impacting the environment to, for example, make baseball bats, and inflicting harm upon another living creature as the integral aspect of the sport. If we were trying to send hedgehogs over the outfield wall instead of baseballs, it would be a more apt comparison.

-B

I'm going to argue that inflicting harm upon another living creature IS an integral aspect of the sport of baseball. Humans must mow down many acres of land, cut down countless trees and introduce non-native grasses thus creating problems for the native inhabitants. Baseball bats and fields are and 'integral' part of that sport and both cause great consternation to the displaced or deceased animals that lived in the places that become either bats or fields.

As Belicove LOVES to say, it's a slippery slope and it depends on your perspective as to what you want to fight and how deeply into the activity you choose to look. I can guarantee that my skis are connected to some activity that inflicts harm/pain on some living being, but I'm not going to stop skiing anytime soon.

I still contend there is a difference between inflicting physical pain upon a living creature and impacting the environment, which does, no doubt, have negative implications for all living creatures.

I am not suggesting that no one was exploited or negatively affected by baseball or sports in general (all those children in Taiwan making shoes for three cents an hour, or whatever) but that fishing, on top of the issues it shares with baseball, has the added horror of forcibly removing a fish from its environment using a method that injures it. Even if you put the fish back in the water, we cannot think that the fish isn't impacted, what with the oxygen deprivation and hook wound at the very least.

I probably shouldn't even get out of bed in the morning, as the electricity required to run my alarm clock probably hurts something somewhere. Excellent plan -- I'm back to home. Oh, wait, I drove a car to work, which also harmed the ecosphere and used natural resources to build as well as fuel. It's a vicious circle...

-B

Baseball players start with bats (the wooden kind) and the damage inherent in their creation. Then, they move on to larger fauna, like ospreys. I welcome you to watch the video of poor Ozzie, the osprey, who was beamed to death by a malicious Detroit Cubbie.

http://www.local6.com/orlpn/news/stories/news-216305920030428-100451.html

I hope that you are as horrified as I was.

*exasperated sigh*

I got nuthin but love, baby.

Just not for baseball, eh?
-B