Researcher explores whether fish feel pain

http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2010/11/17/researcher_explores_whether_fish_feel_pain.html

Summary – This article is about Victoria Braithwaite who has recently published a book about whether or not fish feel pain. She talks about how she did numerous experiments to find if fish feel pain, and the results came out positive. When the fish were hurt, they reacted to the pain, and when the fish were given pain relief, their behavior changed, which Braithwaite said indicated that the fish do in fact feel pain. Braithwaite believes that her research will encourage fish farmers to be more humane about the way they kill fish, instead of just leaving them to suffocate. This sums up what the article was discussing.

Opinion – I think her research was kind of pointless because I thought everyone already knew that all animals, fish included, feel pain when you hurt them. Also, in my opinion, this topic does not seem to be very pressing, so I can’t figure out why she would spend decades of her life to find out if fish feel pain, especially since she says she is a big eater of fish. I do think that it is nice that she is thinking of animals, though, and that she cares about how the fish farmers and catchers kill them. However, if she really cares about fish, she should not want to kill them in the first place, and she should have become one of those crazy animal rights people. That is my honest to goodness opinion about the article.