Saturday, 8 October 2022

Fish Feelings?

The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) oversees a global certification scheme for farmed fish including Salmon. The ASC now accepts that fish can feel 'pain, stress and anxiety'. The council take this to mean that farmed fish must be humanely killed (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/08/farmed-fish-feel-pain-stress-and-anxiety-and-must-be-killed-humanely-global-regulator-admits). There's no doubt that fish feel pain. Stress and especially, anxiety are, are more difficult to firmly establish. Stress and anxiety are somewhat loaded terms taken from human experience. The ASC is now exerting pressure on the UK government to extend its animal welfare laws to fisheries. The UK's animal welfare laws were largely designed for agriculture and animal research. Animals in Salmon farms are, however, in a comparable situation. The logic breaks down, as there is no chance of wild fish being humanely killed by people operating trawlers. Trawled fish generally suffer an horrendous and often drawn-out death. If captive fish feel pain and (probably) anxiety, the same must be true of their wild counterparts?

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