Posted on 7/29/2005, 4:29:48 AM by smoothsailing
PETA hooks the wrong fish
By Eric Heyl
Friday, July 29, 2005
I was in a custom auto shop yesterday, and as you might imagine, the topic of whether fish are capable of experiencing pain was broached.
I know, I know. Seems like you can't take a car in to be turbo-charged these days without having a discussion on the sensory capabilities of cold-blooded aquatic vertebrates.
"I never really thought too much about it before," said Meagan Barker, co-owner of Strict Fab Automotive Solutions on Route 51 in Jefferson Hills. "But no, I don't think a fish can actually feel a hook in its mouth."
Barker is thinking about such things with greater frequency since her exposure to the latest outlandish publicity stunt by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
PETA is protesting the sadistic animal cruelty it believes will occur in town this weekend at the CITGO Bassmaster Classic. The radical animal rights group is using as its tool an ad on a huge billboard directly above Strict Fab.
The ad features a computer-altered picture of a dog with a fish hook through its bloody lip and poses the question," If you wouldn't do this to a dog, why do it to a fish?"
Possibly because dogs and fish aren't really comparable creatures.
You can't walk, pet or groom a fish.
Try asking a bass to fetch a stick.
Or submerging a dog -- of any breed -- under water for a prolonged period. A few initial yelps of protest are liable to be followed by uninterrupted silence.
When it comes to animal blood sport, fishing never has ranked up there with pit bull fighting. Scientists and zoologists can't even agree on whether fish are intelligent enough to be cognizant of pain.
Given those facts, it's...
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Pittsburgh *ping*
Never heard of a dog that could live underwater. Also, never heard to a dog filleted and served with tartar sauce.
Oh, fish can feel the hook I'm sure.
So what? I feel I want to eat fish.
I'm a human. My feelings come first.
I've known a few PETA people, and their concern for animals exceeds their concern for their fellow humans IMO.
I like the story we had here last winter about PETA supposedly handing out fur coats they'd collected to homeless people. I can't remember if some of them had red paint stains on them or not.
Me neither,but I had a golden lab who came pretty close!He would actually dive for oysters in the bay where I lived and bring back a cluster gripped in his teeth!True story.
Drove by the billboard this morning. It was a WTF moment. I petted 3 dogs today and they all sniffed my butt. I will now eat all my fish sandwiches live.
That should be fun! roflol.
CITGO Bassmaster Classic?
Do I have this right? Is a south american dictator sponsoring a fishing event in the US?
Who cares if fish can feel hooks? We con't catch them to make them feel good.
The existence PETA always reminds me that there is no shortage of a$$holes.
I've heard the national PETA puke on our local radio talk show and I'm really pissed the host, Howie Carr, gives the ass-bleeped dweeb air-timel
PETA is the same as the eco-terrorists
This, despite the fact that I lived (and ate) with a vegetarian woman for 3 years. Turns out she had an unusual, mis-diagnosed gall bladder condition which made eating fatty meat products painful.
When the stones finally passed she was a complete carnivore.
Score one for the meat eaters, chalk my karma up for putting up with her.
I'd be surprised if fish can't feel pain - seems like a basic animal survival mechanism. There are certain people who can't feel pain, some sort of syndrome, and they end up damaging their bodies inadvertantly.
But a fish is normally gonna get chomped by a bigger fish in short order anyway, not sure which is more painful, a hook or a chomp and I don't really care.
And as for the biggest fish in the pond who eats all the smaller fish, well, he needs to realize that there is a bigger fish out there than him, and that's us.
A billboard dipicting a dog (via computer animation, of course) subjected to some of the torments routinely inflicted on pigs would have been thought-provoking.
Help me out: Why is it okay to eat pigs (not only eat, but manufacture & process them like widgets), but not okay to eat dogs, cats, monkeys, and dolphins? It can't be a function of intelligence. Is this merely an invidious distinction?
Good one.
Because pigs are just so tasty ... pork chops, ham, sausage, bacon, tenderloins ... do I need to go on?
tartar sauce?...tartar sauce?...nobody uses tartar sauce. Try A-1.
/s
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