Fish feel pain, British researchers say

[rock jock]

LONDON (AFP) - Fish feel pain, say scientists in Britain in a breakthrough study that has anglers and animal rights activists at loggerheads.

Laboratory tests, in which bee venom and acetic acid was injected into the lips of rainbow trout, suggested that fish have feelings, including stress and pain in the form of "trout trauma."

The research was carried out by the University of Edinburgh and the Roslin Institute -- birthplace of Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal -- and published by the august Royal Society in London on Wednesday.

It sought to demonstrate that fish can feel pain by the existence of nervous system receptors, or "polymodal nociceptors," in their heads which respond to damaging stimuli.

"Anomalous behaviours were exhibited by trout subjected to bee venom and acetic acid," says Lynne Sneddon, who led the study.

"Fish demonstrated 'rocking' motion, strikingly similar to the kind of motion seen in stressed higher vertebrates like mammals," she said.

She added: "The trout injected with acetic acid were also observed to rub their lips on to the gravel in their tank and on the tank walls. These do not appear to be reflex responses."

"Our research demonstrates nociception and suggests that noxious stimulation in the rainbow trout has adverse behavioural and physiological effects. This fulfils the criteria for animal pain."

The findings were welcomed by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), an outspoken animal rights group.

"Although we are not happy that the animals suffered for the study, we hope that when people see these results, they will think twice about going angling," said PETA director Dawn Carr.

But the National Angling Alliance (NAA) -- representing Britain's 3.8 million sport fishermen -- called the conclusions "surprising."

"These findings are in direct contrast to the recent work of Professor James Rose of the University of Wyoming, who stated ... that fish do not possess the necessary and specific regions of the brain, the neocortex, to enable them to feel pain," an NAA spokesman said.

Bruno Broughton, a fish biologist and NAA adviser, said: "I doubt that it will come as much of a shock to anglers to learn that fish have an elaborate system of sensory cells around their mouths..."

"However, it is an entirely different matter to draw conclusions about the ability of fish to feel pain, a psychological experience for which they literally do not have the brains."

So, the fish in fact have something in common with PETA.

 

[cuchulainn]

I've known since I was a little boy that the fish I catch feel pain. I still fish.

In other news, researchers find that trees are made up of tiny biological units called "cells" and that those white, fluffy looking things in the sky are correlated with rain.

 

[4v50 Gary]

Like cuchulainn says...

All that money spent for something a kid could have told them? I use to watch my father whack a fish with the flat side of a cleaver. The fish would flop and he'd whack it again.

I wonder if they can give me money to prove that chickens can run without a head.

 

[Blackcloud6]

Sob!

 

[Sir Galahad]

And this proves what? Even the ancients knew that. But the ancients still knew that life feeds on life. Life is a circle. What dies gives life to that which dies and feeds something else in turn. Had those researchers spent more time researching certain Traditions, they would realize that it is not the pain or dying that is of importance. What is important is to be thankful for that which has died to feed you. And honor that life that lives on in you.

 

[gun-fucious]

get in my belly!!!!

ya mean fish feel it when ya jam a hook through their snouts?
is that why they "fight"? Why would an animal sense pain?
it couldn't have an evolutionary advantage, could it?

and ya know what else?
catfish will twitch in a pan an hour after being beheaded and skinned

and they still taste sweet

i didn't evolve these bicuspids for nothing, Dawn Carr.

 

[Preacherman]

From the Times, London, Opinion columns (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3284-664910,00.html):

May 01, 2003

We should ignore this codswallop hook, line and sinker

By Ross Clark

If the piranha fish charged with the task of dispatching Dr Goldfinger’s adversaries could speak, their last words to Mr Bond would be: “This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you.†However much their gormless expressions might tempt us to think otherwise, fish can, and do, feel pain, according to Lynne Sneddon, head of animal biology at the University of Liverpool. She says she has found evidence of “pain receptors†in trout and proved that they work by injecting bee venom into the lips of the poor creatures and watching them writhe in agony.

Unsurprisingly, the angling lobby, which has long suspected that its sport would be the next to be targeted by animal rights’ activists, has reacted angrily. “Anglers have known all along that fish do not feel pain or certainly not pain as other animals do,†says Bob Clark, of the National Federation of Anglers. “To attribute the same sensory reaction to fish as you would to mammals is not supported in science at all.â€

When I hear anglers use the language of cod science — if you will pardon the expression — I know their sport is doomed. There is little point in them involving themselves in the philosophical debate over piscine intelligence. Much as I dislike the RSPCA, I can’t fault the statement by its senior scientific officer, Penny Hawkins: “All vertebrates should be given the benefit of the doubt and assumed to be capable of suffering.â€

If anglers want to save their sport, they should say instead: “Fish can feel pain? So what?†The truth is that it impossible for us to go about our business without some little creature biting the dust. If one takes the arguments of animal rights’ activists to their logical conclusion, it is unethical for humans to do anything other than lie still and wait for rodents and microbes to feast on us.

I can’t remember from school biology lessons exactly how many bacteria are supposed to die every time we place a foot on the ground, but I am sure it was up in the millions. Who is to say that they, too, cannot feel anything as their bodies are ground by our boots? And think of all the little bugs and beetles run down every time an animal rights activist climbs on his bike and pedals off to a meeting of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta). God help the cycling lobby when scientists discover evidence of pain receptors in arthropods.

As Dr Sneddon’s work leaves it, bony fish such as salmon and trout can feel pain but boneless fish cannot. For some class warriors, that is very convenient, because it provides a justification for eliminating the sport of toffs while still allowing the common man his skate and chips.

But the science of animal suffering certainly isn’t going to end there. It might not even end with animals. Plants, too, have rudimentary sensory devices; it is thanks to a sense of touch that bindweed is able to wind itself around your drainpipe. If touch, why not feeling, and if not feeling, why not pain? If you are prepared to believe that a codfish can feel a hook stuffed through its cheek, it is illogical to deny the possibility that your lawn cannot feel a thing when you attack it with your Flymo.

Once Peta has had its way and we are all leading impeccably vegan lives, it won’t take a minute for that organisation to transform itself into People for the Ethical Treatment of Vegetables. We have a choice.

Either we go along with the fundamentalist approach to animal rights and commit ourselves to banning fishing, along with everything else that science may one day rule is unkind to some beast or other. Or we carry on fishing, accept the inevitability of animal suffering and comfort ourselves with the thught: “What the hell? It’s a jungle out there.â€

 

[Monkeyleg]

If one of these researchers injected bee venom and acetic acid into my lips, I wouldn't be the only one feeling pain.

Is this really the apex of a scientist's career?

"What do you do, Mr. Scientist?"

"I study fish lips on behalf of PETA."

"Oh, I see. McDonald's turned you down for the third-shift assistant manager job, huh?"

 

[Soap]

Any living thing that has any form of senses can "feel pain." So if a form of bacteria "feels pain", does that mean that bacteria have inherent rights as well? When I was a kid, the Great Flood didn't make sense to me, now it does.

 

[Azrael256]

Only one thing I can say to this:
I give a flying rat's tail because...?