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Anonymous
Guest
Do fish feel pain?
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Anonymous
Guest
I say yes.
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Anonymous
Guest
No, not in the way you do. Maybe at some level, but not like you think of it. You need only watch a largemouth bass take a lure after it's been gut hooked, or hooked through the eye to know this. If I stuck an ice pick through you're face or in your abdomen, would you be in the drive through at McDonald's ordering a Big Mac? Nope.
Jim
Jim
Yes, but no the sense you and I feel pain. For example, sharks go on feeding frenzies and don't seem the least bit fazed after being thrashed. Pain is a defensive mechanism and I think humans (and more complex organisms) experience it differently then simplier organisms.
maybe I'm way off here, but i'd think an animal as small as a tropical fish has a much less extensive and more primitive nervous system.
I say physical pain... yes. BUT, because humans have an emotional response to the pain, that majorly differs the experience. For instance, someone can tramp on your bare foot or shoot you in the foot. IMO each would both give you a great deal of pain, but which one is more likely to send your body and nervous system into 'shock' mode and make you panic? The gunshot because of your emotional connection with the violence aspect as well as the connection between shootings and death, even though a gunshot to the foot has virtually 0 chance of killing you if treated. If you get tramped on you just think, "MAN oh MAN did that ever hurt... but at least I'll be okay in a few minutes". Get what I'm tryin to say here? Pain is pain, but IMO humans experience it completely differently based on the emotional response tied to the particular circumstances.
I say physical pain... yes. BUT, because humans have an emotional response to the pain, that majorly differs the experience. For instance, someone can tramp on your bare foot or shoot you in the foot. IMO each would both give you a great deal of pain, but which one is more likely to send your body and nervous system into 'shock' mode and make you panic? The gunshot because of your emotional connection with the violence aspect as well as the connection between shootings and death, even though a gunshot to the foot has virtually 0 chance of killing you if treated. If you get tramped on you just think, "MAN oh MAN did that ever hurt... but at least I'll be okay in a few minutes". Get what I'm tryin to say here? Pain is pain, but IMO humans experience it completely differently based on the emotional response tied to the particular circumstances.
They do not feel pain. Fish dont have the brain function/area that creates a "pain" sensation.
They do react defensivelyand positively aka stimulous /response but that does not imply a feeling of pain or pleasure.
If you google this you will see various scientific studies and a bunch of PETA garbage fluff articles that try to refute.
This issue has come up as a result of their trying to ban fishing.
Well we do know and if someone did ask the question, then they just might care about the animals they are keeping.
A fishes activity can tell you much about its health, its respirations, if its spinning in circles, if its doing repetitive motions. All these signals can tell you if a fish is stressed. Scientific studies have shown that stress and the sensation of pain are very different and that fish a fishes behaviour is a response to stimulous- good or in a stressful situation bad. E.G. bad water parameters, infection, dominance, food, breeding cycle, mating etc.
They do react defensivelyand positively aka stimulous /response but that does not imply a feeling of pain or pleasure.
If you google this you will see various scientific studies and a bunch of PETA garbage fluff articles that try to refute.
This issue has come up as a result of their trying to ban fishing.
Well we do know and if someone did ask the question, then they just might care about the animals they are keeping.
A fishes activity can tell you much about its health, its respirations, if its spinning in circles, if its doing repetitive motions. All these signals can tell you if a fish is stressed. Scientific studies have shown that stress and the sensation of pain are very different and that fish a fishes behaviour is a response to stimulous- good or in a stressful situation bad. E.G. bad water parameters, infection, dominance, food, breeding cycle, mating etc.
Of course fish feel pain! They have a Central nervous System and they have nerves that fire off when they sustain an injury.
It is the way in which they subjectively 'feel' that pain which confuses alot of people.
Fish are 'simpler' animals, so they have a more 'primitive' and visceral response to it. You will notice that all wild animals tend to act as if the pain isn't as intense for them - but this is not necessarily so! Humans, being soft and city-bound for the most part, but definitely OUT of nature, react mostly by babying the injured part immediately and perceiving it as a huge calamity.
As a karate instructor, I have noticed the phenomenon of injury during sparring matches - the more important and intense the match, the less you notice the pain - when the 'fight' is over, then the pain grabs your attention. I've taken a kick to the mouth that caused my own teeth to slice of a chunk of my inner lip - it bled like a pig. However, I only noticed it after I'd countered and hit back. Then the pain hit me. However, while I'm sitting there waiting for the little pinch of a blood test needle, I'm steeling myself as if I'm about to have my arm ripped off. And it just about 'feels' like it.
If humans, with our big brains react this way in a simple controlled sparring match setting, how much more will less brainy animals dismiss pain in a survival situation? They will fight like hell to escape with their lives; for a wild animal, losing the fight will, 99% of the time, mean death.
Later on they lick their wounds. How does this translate to the aquarium? Well, I'm sure that fish go through different stress in the tank then they did in the wild - they must notice that there's a curious lack of predators day after day, and although they can't remember for long term, it must be likely that the lack of predation (in MOST tanks) would tend to reduce their stress levels - unless you are constantly trying to catch and harass them.
The best answer is observation - watch how a wounded fish reacts, and assume nothing. For me, I would never operate on a fish without giving it anaesthetic. And I know that the fishhook has GOT to hurt - only not fighting to get the foreign item out of your mouth means some kind of unforseen death.
It is the way in which they subjectively 'feel' that pain which confuses alot of people.
Fish are 'simpler' animals, so they have a more 'primitive' and visceral response to it. You will notice that all wild animals tend to act as if the pain isn't as intense for them - but this is not necessarily so! Humans, being soft and city-bound for the most part, but definitely OUT of nature, react mostly by babying the injured part immediately and perceiving it as a huge calamity.
As a karate instructor, I have noticed the phenomenon of injury during sparring matches - the more important and intense the match, the less you notice the pain - when the 'fight' is over, then the pain grabs your attention. I've taken a kick to the mouth that caused my own teeth to slice of a chunk of my inner lip - it bled like a pig. However, I only noticed it after I'd countered and hit back. Then the pain hit me. However, while I'm sitting there waiting for the little pinch of a blood test needle, I'm steeling myself as if I'm about to have my arm ripped off. And it just about 'feels' like it.
If humans, with our big brains react this way in a simple controlled sparring match setting, how much more will less brainy animals dismiss pain in a survival situation? They will fight like hell to escape with their lives; for a wild animal, losing the fight will, 99% of the time, mean death.
Later on they lick their wounds. How does this translate to the aquarium? Well, I'm sure that fish go through different stress in the tank then they did in the wild - they must notice that there's a curious lack of predators day after day, and although they can't remember for long term, it must be likely that the lack of predation (in MOST tanks) would tend to reduce their stress levels - unless you are constantly trying to catch and harass them.
The best answer is observation - watch how a wounded fish reacts, and assume nothing. For me, I would never operate on a fish without giving it anaesthetic. And I know that the fishhook has GOT to hurt - only not fighting to get the foreign item out of your mouth means some kind of unforseen death.
ok one last time.. they do not "feel" pain its called stimulous response.
Fish do not have the brain function/center that acknowledges pain, hence they cannot "feel" pain. A simple google search will show the research that bears this out.
What you are seeing is the fishes natural response to a stimulous. In this case a hook through its mouth tells the brain -"HEY THIS AINT RIGHT" and it begins to thrash and fight to release its self its not saying "HEY IM IN PAIN".
Once a fish is not hooked it reacts as if nothing ever happened - as the sorce of the stimulous response has stopped so it now responds "all systems normal wheres my next meal".
You cannot compare fishes to a mammals it wont work the brains are vastly different.
Fish do not have the brain function/center that acknowledges pain, hence they cannot "feel" pain. A simple google search will show the research that bears this out.
What you are seeing is the fishes natural response to a stimulous. In this case a hook through its mouth tells the brain -"HEY THIS AINT RIGHT" and it begins to thrash and fight to release its self its not saying "HEY IM IN PAIN".
Once a fish is not hooked it reacts as if nothing ever happened - as the sorce of the stimulous response has stopped so it now responds "all systems normal wheres my next meal".
You cannot compare fishes to a mammals it wont work the brains are vastly different.
Chucky":2ixog3bb said:
Despite the length of your post, I'm unable to glean once ounce of empirical data from it, nor even one bit of related research. Relating your experiences in karate and then applying the information to piscine physiology is silly at best.
The best answer IS observation, and when you watch a gut hooked fish go on about it's business as if nothing has happened, you have your answer. If that's not enough, go to your local university and look up the papers in the subject, there's more than one.
Jim
Excuse me, Jim, but you have your nerve in saying:
Now. Scientists MUST assume nothing, and then only assign a subjective experience when there's incontrovertible evidence for it.
The problem with this is that many errors on the side of being safe are being made. A scientist will watch a child cry after banging their finger, and then claim it's a mechanism to get parental attention; it has nothing to do with actually feeling pain. Therefore, we cannot assume a child feels pain. There is a known case from the past where a doctor operated on an Autistic child with no anaesthetic, claiming exactly the same thing; the child was reacting to an unusual stimulus, and that he couldn't feel the actual pain. Anyone without HIS so-called 'education' knows he was a full-of-it quack.
Now comparing fish to mammals may indeed not be the closest comparison we can make, but it does have valididty. When a human fights, the lower, instinctual, REPTILE brain takes over. This is why they react more and more like an animal. Furthermore, where did our sensation of pain evolve from? Would you deny that a rodent feels pain? Or a bird? How about a reptile?
Why should you then deny that a fish feels pain? Just because their brain is wired and constructed so differently from a mammal's?
How can you know then that their sensation of pain is different from ours?
Perhaps their brain interprets the sensation differently from ours, in a totally different area, in a totally different mechanism, but it still causes them pain - it would likely be so, because pain is a VERY adaptive mechanism in survival. Where did we mammals get it from? Invent it ourselves with our hair and milk did we?
You watch some actions of a hooked or otherwise injured fish swim along as if nothing happened and then ASSUME it feels no 'real' human-like pain because it isn't acting like a human in pain does? Assumptions based on facts are still that. ASSUMPTIONS. Analogies drawn on the basis of assumptions are just as tenous. Your biologist assumes that since fish lack a brain area that humans do where we feel pain, it feels no pain at all. It ain't necessarily so.
We don't know how fish feel pain, but I don't doubt that they do, and after reading research, I am sure those scientists are not seeing the forest for the trees.
I don't believe that fish feel pain in the SAME way/intensity we do, but hey - in the end, what the hell do we know? Are any of us a fish?
When you had said yourself
You did the same thing yourself in reverse to prove your point.
Now. Scientists MUST assume nothing, and then only assign a subjective experience when there's incontrovertible evidence for it.
The problem with this is that many errors on the side of being safe are being made. A scientist will watch a child cry after banging their finger, and then claim it's a mechanism to get parental attention; it has nothing to do with actually feeling pain. Therefore, we cannot assume a child feels pain. There is a known case from the past where a doctor operated on an Autistic child with no anaesthetic, claiming exactly the same thing; the child was reacting to an unusual stimulus, and that he couldn't feel the actual pain. Anyone without HIS so-called 'education' knows he was a full-of-it quack.
Now comparing fish to mammals may indeed not be the closest comparison we can make, but it does have valididty. When a human fights, the lower, instinctual, REPTILE brain takes over. This is why they react more and more like an animal. Furthermore, where did our sensation of pain evolve from? Would you deny that a rodent feels pain? Or a bird? How about a reptile?
Why should you then deny that a fish feels pain? Just because their brain is wired and constructed so differently from a mammal's?
How can you know then that their sensation of pain is different from ours?
Perhaps their brain interprets the sensation differently from ours, in a totally different area, in a totally different mechanism, but it still causes them pain - it would likely be so, because pain is a VERY adaptive mechanism in survival. Where did we mammals get it from? Invent it ourselves with our hair and milk did we?
You watch some actions of a hooked or otherwise injured fish swim along as if nothing happened and then ASSUME it feels no 'real' human-like pain because it isn't acting like a human in pain does? Assumptions based on facts are still that. ASSUMPTIONS. Analogies drawn on the basis of assumptions are just as tenous. Your biologist assumes that since fish lack a brain area that humans do where we feel pain, it feels no pain at all. It ain't necessarily so.
We don't know how fish feel pain, but I don't doubt that they do, and after reading research, I am sure those scientists are not seeing the forest for the trees.
I don't believe that fish feel pain in the SAME way/intensity we do, but hey - in the end, what the hell do we know? Are any of us a fish?
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