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Jun 15, 2009 06:20 PM | 12
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Nothing says Seattle like sipping a grande latte from the original Starbucks while watching dead halibut and salmon fly past your face.
So the vets coming to town next month for the annual meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) figured why not have a team-building demonstration featuring the famous flinging fishmongers from the Pike Place Fish Market?
Not so fast, said the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) when it caught wind of the plan. In a protest letter to the vets, the group trashed the “event in which animals are treated so disrespectfully and are handled as if they were toys."
PETA offered to provide rubber stuntfish instead.
“Oh, please,” responded a Seattle Times editorial last Thursday. “They are dead. The next best thing that can happen to a salmon is to be topped with lemon and butter, barbecued and then eaten.”
PETA’s complaint is part of a broader attack on the killing and eating of fish because fishing hurts them—literally. Fish may feel pain, according to a study published this April in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science.
Two Purdue University researchers attached mini heaters to goldfish—half of which were injected with morphine, the other half with saline. A couple of hours after the heat was removed, those given the morphine swam around normally, while those not benefiting from the pain medicine appeared disturbed and defensive.
The difference in behavior "strongly suggests there is something going on with their memory and experience of that event that is not a reflex,” Joseph Garner, a co-author on the paper, told The Daily Telegraph.
Regardless of what they may have felt while alive, Pike Place’s flying fish are dead. One of the market’s managers, Jeremy Ridgeway, defended their handling of a creature he and his colleagues rely on and respect: "The thing is, we're not laughing and making fun of them,” he told the Los Angeles Times. Ridgeway often launches the ice-to-counter flyovers himself. “It's just Point A to Point B. That's why we do it."
The AVMA is unbowed and will proceed with the demonstration using dead fish, telling members in a letter that, unlike PETA, “the AVMA supports the responsible use of animals for human purposes.”
Photo of Pike Place fishmonger and flying fish courtesy of Phil Romans via Flickr.
Tags:
flying fish,
Pike Place Market,
veterinarians,
PETA
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12 Comments
Add CommentAll I can say about PETA is, if some day someone proves that plants feel pain what would they have us do starve?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis comment is a test to make sure I didn't forget my log in name and password, there isn't a log in button anywhere on the site so I'm not about to type up a comment and then all the sudden lose it because the password or something was wrong... I've never come across such a weird/broken sign in process...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisok so I guess it was right!!! Oddy thats so true... I don't even care if plants feel pain or not. Plants are absolutely alive and I think PETA is R E T A R T E D for not even considering that so they can understand how stupid they are to 99.999% of the rest of the world... Being in PETA is a luxary we can afford in the US because it's damn near impossible to die from stupidity here... survival of the smartest and fittest doesn't exist in America.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismorphine makes you high - I would swim around with a big smile on my face - fish can get high - that is all the study proves - of course they feel pain - they are alive - where do you think pain evolved from - adam and eve? - morons! Fish were here first and pain was here too. Long before PETA.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisplants dont - no nervous system - redefine as react to stimuli - like scarring to a cut and you have proven they are alive only.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thistest
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisagreed - america, the land of diluted ignorance and stupidity - someone hire a social worker and tell the teachers it their fault.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNext Peta will argue that dead fish have souls. Yikes! This will happen right after the non-smokers pass laws prohibiting possession of tobacco products within 1 mile of schools, hospitals, etc. I pity the smoker who doesn't leave his Camels in the car after walking a mile to see his dying Mom.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt will start in the bankrupt State of california.
PETA is always disappointing me, their intentions are good, and some of their campaigns (such as the anti-fur movement) have made great strides in animal rights, but they are always taking stupid positions on things like this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisObviously living fish feel pain, like every creature with a nervous system, but these guys are dead. Honestly, being tossed around a fishmarket sounds a lot more dignified than being pumped full of preservatives, dolled up, and put on display, like we do with humans. That being said, I am a little confused how juggling fish is a team building exercise for vets in the first place?
Wait a minute...PETA protests research with live animals as cruelty and then wants to use a study where live goldfish were tortured? HYPOCRITES! They are justifying the goldfish research!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article doesn't say PETA is using the goldfish research, the author made that connection herself, as far I can tell. I seriously doubt PETA would strap heaters to fish and shoot them up with morphine if they're so upset about people tossing around dead fish.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe study itself seems awful...let's burn the heck out of some fish and then see if they seem upset about it. And if they don't even know if fish feel pain, how can they assume that morphine will act as a pain reliever? If you assume their brain chemistry is different enough that they can't feel pain, morphine could have totally unexpected effects.
And people think abortion is alright. Let's worry less about fish (who do have souls btw) and more about kids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this