The fishing industry causes untold suffering to animals, with the exact number of fish caught in the wild and farmed every year too large to quantify.
The science is very clear on the sentience of fish and other marine animals, such as crustaceans: these animals feel pain.
Not only does ripping these animals from the sea cause them horrific suffering, but it has a knock-on effect on other animals.
Non-target species are regularly caught in nets; whales, dolphins and turtles, for example, often get caught up in the nets and die.
Also, discarded fishing equipment is the biggest source of ocean plastic pollution, globally.
Dragged out of the oceans in huge fishing nets, their eyes often pop out of their heads due to the change in pressure and they suffocate as they are crushed amongst millions of others. Tipped onto the decks of industrial trawlers, they are frequently gutted alive. Nets the size of football pitches are indiscriminate in their catch: turtles, dolphins and other ‘non-target’ species are often caught up and killed or tossed over the side – injured and stressed and therefore likely to perish – back into the water. Large fish such as tuna are caught on drag lines and may be pulled for miles, being ripped to shreds in the process.
Fish feel pain
The suffering of fish is now well documented. Scientific reports have proven that they experience pain, fear and the natural instinct to survive, just as other animals do. The fact that fish may have led a ‘free range’ existence does not make their slaughter any more excusable or their deaths any less brutal and unnecessary.
Factory farmed fish
Industrial farms breed fish in huge sunken pens, like battery cages under water. The fish are unable to swim freely and thrash about in filthy water until their time comes to be killed. Disease runs rife in such cramped conditions and they have to be dosed with drugs to kill parasites and keep infection at bay. These diseases often spread to local wild fish, killing many.
Fish farms wreak havoc on the environment due to the amount of concentrated effluent that is discharged into the surrounding waters. Huge quantities of wild-caught fish are also fed to farmed fish – even herbivorous ones – further plundering the ocean and damaging the environment.
Slaughter
Aquatic animals have very little protection in law at the time of their slaughter. Killing methods for farmed fish are vicious – some are boiled alive, while others suffer asphyxiation or are bled to death without stunning. This would be considered completely unacceptable for any other kind of animal.
Most wild-caught fish are gutted whilst still alive or are left to suffocate. The whole commercial fishing process, totally ungoverned by humane protocols, let alone laws, could be the greatest animal welfare scandal of our time.
If you care about animals, being vegan is the best thing you can do!
Whether they are a dog who you share your home with, a pig or a chicken on a factory farm, or a fish being torn from the ocean, all animals deserve to live free from harm and suffering. By going vegan you will be doing the single, most effective thing you can do to say ‘NO’ to animal cruelty.
