FISH AND PAIN

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22344, 15 February 1936, Page 17

FISH AND PAIN

gj r —Until someone can bring forward' a statement personally vouched for as coming from the actual sufferer, that is the fish, that it feels no pain, and that all these little tricks with hooks in its inside and its eye—which sound rather like the completely callous acts of a very young child—mean nothing to it, I prefer to believe that its desire to avoid these barbs, and its frantic lashings in an obvious agony of terror to be free of them, come from some sensation which warns it of danger and death. After all, life is sweet to all living things, and I think I am right in saying that pain is one ot Nature's warnings of physical danger to animals, including human beings; and something would seem to be warning the fish. Whether it be pain or not I do not know; at least the fish would hardly seem to be enjoying being "played" (a grotesque use of a good word) to exhaustion by some sportsman with a light rod and thin line. All blood sports where living things are hunted and maimed are degrading, but fishhag, because of tlio deliberate unnecessary suffering usually involved, is particularly so. It seems that this abuse by man of his power over animal life on earth is one of the main contributory causes of the slow rato of progress in social relationships in the world. Man cannot expect humane treatment from his equals while he cannot accord it to his inferiors. J. Locke.