Fishos Buoyed by Fish Pain Study

[Gad]

Taken From Fishing World email newsletter

24 Jan 2013

By Martin Salter

ANGLERS will never be free from the \"don’t fish feel pain?\" question which has been in the news again lately – but in a good way, thanks to some excellent work by the American Professor James Rose. If you ever run into this guy buy him a beer. Let me explain why...

I\'ve long argued that we have much common ground with mainstream environmentalists, many of whom recognise that as anglers, we are the eyes and ears of the aquatic environment. However, just as there are idiot rednecks in fishing who think conservation is a dirty word there are those extreme greens and uber-bunnyhuggers who would love to see fishing banned because it doesn\'t fit in with their personal ideology. They trot out spurious \"science\" claiming that we are barbarians and that fishing is cruel because fish feel pain in the same way as humans or warm blooded animals. This is, of course, bullsh!t and many of these people are little more than \"lifestyle fascists\" who want to stop us eating fish or meat and ban the keeping of pets.

The arguments of groups like PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) and Animals Australia are not new nor are they based on sound science. However, these groups have money and access to advertising which can have an impact on public opinion and which needs to be countered. They try to claim that fish have nerve structures which are anatomically similar to those of humans and other mammals and that the lips and mouth of fish are particularly well supplied with these pain specific nerve endings. As such a fish hook, however small, must cause the creature pain.

What the scientists tell us

If all this were true, anglers might have something to worry about but a newly released scientific study published in the journal Fish and Fisheries, has found that even when impaled on a hook, the fish is unable to detect pain because it simply does not have the brains for pain. The research was conducted by a team of seven scientists led by Professor James Rose from the University of Wyoming, who concluded that the fish brain does not contain the highly developed neocortex needed to feel pain and concluded that any reaction to being hooked is an unconscious one, rather than a direct response to pain. It has long been known that fish have nociceptors – sensory organs that respond to pain by sending messages to the brain. Past reports have suggested that these nociceptors enabled the creatures to feel reflexive and cognitive pain.

In 2003 contrary research conducted by Dr Lynne Sneddon from Liverpool University in the UK, and others, received widespread media publicity as evidence that fish could feel pain. In a series of bizarre experiments, chemicals were dripped onto the exposed brains of live trout to measure their brain activity, and bee venom and acetic acid were injected into live fish to observe their behavioural reactions.

The actual results confirmed nothing new – fish have an elaborate system of sensory cells around their mouths and when their lips are injected with poisons, fish respond and behave abnormally. The conclusions that this was evidence that fish could feel pain were and still are contested strongly by leading neuroscientists, ichthyologists and fisheries professionals.

It is these outdated and discredited reports that anti angling groups and sadly the RSPCA have seized upon to reject the latest findings from Prof. Rose. The RSPCA actually emailed angling publications last week saying:

\"There are a number of studies which we believe provide enough evidence to show that fish do feel pain (notably the work of Victoria Braithwaite, Lynne Sneddon and Felicity Huntingford) and this remains our view.\"

These people need to realise that there is a distinct difference between an animal\'s unconscious reaction to noxious stimuli – known as nociception – and the conscious feeling of pain. Nociceptive responses are those types of behaviour that follow from injury or disease. Just because an animal reacts to a potentially harmful stimulus is not an indication that it is experiencing pain.

Prof. Rose concluded that fish are able to experience unconscious, basic instinctive responses, but that these did not lead to conscious feelings or pain. The trout’s reactions in the earlier study by Sneddon & co were therefore not ones of discomfort, as they lack the capacity to experience it.

The new research also referred to a study done on fish which were caught with a hook and then released. The fish resumed feeding and normal activity immediately or within minutes and went on to show good long-term survival, which indicated they had not experienced pain.

In advancing his argument that fish are incapable of feeling pain Prof. James Rose, has gone on public record by stating that pain perception in fish is an anatomical impossibility.

“Fishes are neurologically equipped for unconscious nociception and emotional responses, but not conscious pain and feelings. In view of the necessity of consciousness as a precondition for pain experience claims have also been made for the existence of consciousness in fishes. Our assessment of these claims leads us to conclude that neither their rationale nor their supporting evidence is compelling, much less neurologically feasible.â€

.

Furthermore he is particularly scathing of Sneddon, Braithwaite and crew saying in his latest study:

“Our examination of the research literature revealed that these requirements have not been met in research leading to claims for fish pain. Definitions, of pain such as ‘more than a simple reflex,’ are too vague and at odds with the existence of complex unconscious, nocifensive (nociception-evoked) behaviours. In addition, this definition has fostered the use of a false dichotomy that invalidly biases interpretations in favour of conclusions that fishes feel pain. Consequently, the research literature that alleges to show pain in fishes has failed to do so.â€

What we know about fish behaviour

Perhaps the pro pain lobby would like to tell us why fish are able to eat sharp food items, including crabs, molluscs, spined fish and even sea urchins, which cause lacerations to their mouths and which would certainly cause pain were fish capable of experiencing it?

We can deduce from these observations alone that fish do not need to feel pain to survive. In fact, the logical conclusion is the reverse: in their underwater world, pain must be absent because fish would be unable to survive otherwise. Look at the horrendous injuries that fish carry with them as a result of attack from predators and yet their behaviour and fighting fitness seems unaffected.

In an angling context, it is by no means unusual for a caught and returned fish to be re-caught in the same day - in fact I once caught a particularly stupid trout three times in the same afternoon – not exactly behaviour one would expect from a creature in pain!

Threats to Fishing

I know that this is not what people want to read about when they buy fishing mags but someone has to watch our backs. This is what I do in my work for the Angling Trust in the UK and what Allan Hansard and Jim Harnwell are doing through ARFF and Keep Australia Fishing. Listen to this wise warning from my colleague Jan Kappel from the European Anglers Alliance:

“We are on a slippery slope driven by ever accumulating ‘scientific evidence’ that fish feel pain and moral saying that man should not deliberately inflict pain on animals unless there is a very good reason for doing so. From Germany and Switzerland we know that catching a fish for the angler´s pleasure alone is no longer considered a good reason or justification to go fishing.â€

I would like to think that this will be the end of the argument for a while at least for as Professor Robert Arlinghaus, one of the team’s researchers, said:

“The presumption that fish feel pain has hindered scientists for decades and has stigmatised angling, causing an unnecessary social conflict between animal welfare campaigners, and anglers.â€

Now I am not holding my breath for any dramatic rapproachment with our critics many of whom don’t need a scientific justification to take a pop at angling. In many ways this debate about fish feeling pain has always been something of a red herring, if you’ll excuse the pun. But thanks to the efforts of Prof. Rose and his team, including Australia’s own Dr Ben Diggles, we can be reassured that a good body of science is well and truly on our side.