Editorial

Feeling the pain
Oh dear, are we going to have to give up fishing now? It’s looking that way, after newspapers reported last week scientific studies showing that when a fish bites a hook, it hurts.
Does this come as a surprise to anyone? Did anyone ever claim that fish feel no pain? Not likely, but that didn’t stop the Royal Society of Britain from conducting a study that removes the doubt nobody had in the first place.
What purpose does such information serve? Not much to the five million Canadian anglers who spend several billion dollars a year pursuing the fish of their dreams. They had a pretty good idea already that fish aren’t particularly fond of being hooked. Fish probably don’t like being netted, speared or eaten by bigger fish either. Nor do deer like being shot, or pigs stuck, chickens decapitated or for that matter, flies swatted or mosquitoes smacked.
It sort of goes without saying.
The information is useful, however, to the animal rights evangelists. They will use it to bolster their arsenal in the ongoing fight to turn the world into their version of utopia. The vegetarian one, with no pain, not even any discomfort for any beast. Except maybe humans.
Oh well, people have to keep themselves busy somehow.
In certain Asian countries, dog meat is popular. Many westerners find this abhorrent, but why? Because dogs are our pets and we love them as such. Apart from that cultural difference there is nothing to say a dog should be exempt from slaughter if a pig isn’t. Pigs make great pets too. They also make great eating, but don’t tell that to the residents of certain other Asian cultures if you don’t want to insult them.
Devout Buddhists, on the other hand, wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less eat a dog. Hindus won’t touch cows but they don’t mind slaughtering the sacred cow’s buffalo cousin for food, if not for themselves at least to sell to tourists.
It comes down to culture, and organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are trying to force a new one on the rest of us. According to an Edmonton Journal article last week, PETA plans to use the fish pain story to push for a stop to all angling.
That’s an effort that requires an awful lot of swimming against the current, but that never stopped somebody who was convinced he was right. And besides, there are the little victories that validate the struggle. Victories such as ruining the fur trade and putting thousands of Aboriginal trappers out of work. Ho hum another day at the office.
It’s actually been a good couple of weeks for the animal rights evangelists. They’ve got the world’s largest chicken restaurant chain trying to appease that part of its customer base (probably mostly imaginary) that worries about the suffering of the bird that tasty drumstick came from.
Kentucky Fried Chicken denies that PETA protests have anything to do with its recent announcement of new standards meant to guarantee “humane treatment for its birds (Edmonton Journal, May 2).”
Does anyone believe them? We eagerly await the scientific study on chicken happiness.
Not that the idea of humane treatment of animals is all nonsense. Far from it. There is a middle course somewhere whereby improvements can be made without wrecking lifestyles, changing whole cultures or upsetting applecarts altogether.
But when it comes to angling, leave it alone. Leave us alone. Stop trying to humanize the fish.
Don’t turn the fish into something too precious to hurt, because the next step is it will be too sacred to eat. Mushrooms, we hear, have feelings too. Where will it end?