3:15 AM
Vegetarian
“But why not at least eat fish? They can’t feel pain anyway”.
Growing up vegetarian, this was an argument I encountered on a regular basis. I always balked at it, for a couple of different reasons. First, was the implication that the inability to feel pain somehow caused a life to be of lesser value. The other was, perhaps, a bit more complicated. How, I would ask, can we be sure that fish really don’t feel pain?
It seems that I was not the only one asking this question.
It has long been denied that fish are capable of feeling pain, a conclusion drawn from the idea that they do not have the brain matter required to recognize it. Yet studies done over recent years have done a great deal to challenge these long-held beliefs.
In 2003, a report from the BBC described research conducted at the University of Edinburgh. This research team identified, for the first time, receptors in fish similar to those found in other species, including mammals. Furthermore, when the fish were injected with such substances as venom and acid, they wiggled and showed reactions that both went further than reflex and were comparable to reactions one might see in other creatures.
Posted in: 