Do fish feel pain?

[manitoubass2]

Uh oh! Were all going p3ta!!! Lol. My belief is everything for fish is instinctual. I respect them greatly but I'm not gonna lose any sleep over filleting a few. When i do feel bad is when i deep hook a smallie through the gills and have to keep it. My wife says " whats for supper"? "Ummm, mud?" Lol.

[bobkayla]

my wife is the best, she loves to fish but is having moral issues with the whole thing, she's not a vegan or vegetarian or anything,

 

we don't even talk about hunting stuff

 

if you spend some time with small brained animals, it's amazing how smart and social they are

 

is catch and release fishing just torturing/ harassing wildlife?

 

good question Shloim, should be some interesting responses

 

I would say catching and releasing a fish causes more stress than pain

 

My boss doesn't feel pain

[grimsbylander]

We can easily determine this...all you do is find a volunteer, jam a 6" Husky Jerk in his mouth, stand back 30' with your med heavy rod and start crankin'!!! Gee I wonder if he'll take off running and strip out line or run right at you faster than you can reel in??!!

[Pickeral eater]

Imagine if fish were like soccer players?

 

 

That's awesome!

[Dave Bailey]

 

I think you're right about fish (no conscience at all, more "instinctual" than thinking), but elephants, dolphins, whales, primates, and even pigs are a lot more sentient than you're giving them credit for.

 

I give them a lot of credit for intelligence, but until they can be shown to have the ability to, as I said, communicate complex and abstract ideas, I doubt that they understand what death is. In the meantime, I would say that society should go out of its way to treat them humanely, just in case. They definitely have emotions, nobody will convince me that they don't.

[cram]

 

I give them a lot of credit for intelligence, but until they can be shown to have the ability to, as I said, communicate complex and abstract ideas, I doubt that they understand what death is. In the meantime, I would say that society should go out of its way to treat them humanely, just in case. They definitely have emotions, nobody will convince me that they don't.

Elephants, dolphins, gorillas, etc certainly/absolutely mourn their dead, and it is believed they have some understanding of mortality.

 

I'm not sure what you consider communicating complex and abstract ideas, but dolphins, whales, and chimps teach one another how to use tools, or different hunting strategies. It's believed they communicate this, and learn. The part of the brain responsible for a lot of this is the neocortex. We have a big and complicated one. Fish don't even have one. Even if they feel pain, they likely don't perceive or ponder it like we do.

 

Anyone who's had a dog experience death has seen them mourn.

As for the P3TA comment above from Manitoubass.....i think pigs are very smart, but know i"ll be bbq'ing a few racks of ribs tomorrow afternoon.

[MrSimon]

I see animals as a resource created by God and placed on this Earth to be respected and cared for .... but also to be used. Use can include transportation, food, companionship, as well as sport and recreation. The resource is there to be used, but not abused. We are to be good stewards of what we've been given and treat animals responsibly. Its all about balance. With that said though, I do not believe animals have 'rights' and I don't buy into Uncle Ted's whole 'honor your quarry' stuff.

 

So to the OP ... I don't know if fish feel pain or not. Its pretty darn clear that they don't like being hooked and ripped out of the water ...... but to be completely honest, I don't care. I fish because I love it, regardless of how the fish feels. There are WAY more important things in life to focus on than whether or not a fish feels pain.

[craigdritchie]

Hooked in the mouth, fish do not feel what we would call "pain" because the requisite nervous structure simply doesn't exist. A bass or pike eating perch or sunfish clamps down on spiny dorsal fins every single day without a second thought. I wince when a bluegill nails me with one of its spines, but the bass doesn't even feel it. If fish felt pain, those bass and pike would never eat.

 

Do you feel pain when you cut your hair or your fingernails? It's no different. The nervous structure to sense "pain" simply doesn't exist in those parts of the body.

 

Hook a fish somewhere other than inside the mouth and I don't know the answer. I'm not aware of any research on whether a fish snagged in the back senses discomfort. I don't know that anyone has ever studied it.

 

Fish "fight" because they resist the force of us dragging them through the water. They feel the drag of the line and they react to it. If you just hit the free-spool in mid fight, more often than not the fish will settle down and go right back to what it was doing before. It only starts resisting again when you resume trying to haul it into the boat. Try it. The fish may continue to scrap because it has a mouth full of Zara Spook and can't close its yap ... but most of the time they settle down pretty quickly.

Edited June 20, 2014 by Craig_Ritchie

[BillM]

You can absolutely put me in the 'respect your quarry' boat. We also know chinooks are terrified of marshmellows.

[SirCranksalot]

Of course they don't fell any pain, Otherwise they would scream when you landed them!

[Whitespinnerbait]

:whistling:

[CRUD150]

My boss doesn't feel pain

 

My boss doesn't feel my pain.

[jimmer]

Yet, they have no catch and release laws in some European countries. Catch and Kill that's it! Why, because someone determined that it is cruel to torture a fish by catching it, then releasing it to do it all over again. Obviously they thought fish feel pain. At least they didn't ban fishing outright.

[Terry]

same European countries think it is better to use oil based products then a renewable resource like beaver pelts

 

and god forbid you kill a seal

 

but they still eat their steak and carp

[glen]

Maybe the earth is flat over there.

 

Am I ever glad beef ain't cute.