A more ethical way to live feed?
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Hello; i was 11 or maybe 12 when I used lawn mowing and other earned money to get a small tank. Took me a long time to consider the ethics of the hobby. A rough reference to a scene from the old I ROBOT stories and particularly the three laws. This scene is on the surface of a moon I think and two of the laws are in play.
A robot sees a human somehow become unconscious near a machine. One of the robot laws is to help and/or protect humans. However another robot law says the robot must not endanger itself without a good reason. In the story the machine somehow can harm the robot but not the human. So, the robot is compelled to help the human if the human is in immediate or serious danger regardless of possible harm to itself. But in the scene the human is not in immediate or serious danger. He is merely unconscious sort of like sleeping and can remain in the that state for some time. If the robot gets too close to the machine it will be badly damaged. So, the robot is compelled to approach the machine and the human to help. But when it gets too close it's sensors tell it going closer will destroy it very soon. Evan a quick dash to get the human will do too much harm.
In the story the robot winds up running in a circle around the machine over and over again. Two compulsions at work in it's positronic brain. When other humans finally show up the robot has run a circular rut into the ground. The circle diameter being defined by a tug between the two compulsions to help the human and self-protection for the robot. Had the human's situation become worse the robot could override self-protection and go closer. The robot's joints were beginning to wear and had the joints begun to fail the robot could have overridden self-protection and gone in to help the human at the cost of its own destruction.
I think of this SCI-Fi story when i struggle with two somewhat opposing concepts. I have modified my fish keeping over the decades because i cannot just ignore the ethical issues completely and i want to have tanks with fish.
The OP has a personal dilemma which i do not anymore. live feeding on top of all else is difficult and can be expensive. Difficult in that having and keeping feeders is a chore.
A robot sees a human somehow become unconscious near a machine. One of the robot laws is to help and/or protect humans. However another robot law says the robot must not endanger itself without a good reason. In the story the machine somehow can harm the robot but not the human. So, the robot is compelled to help the human if the human is in immediate or serious danger regardless of possible harm to itself. But in the scene the human is not in immediate or serious danger. He is merely unconscious sort of like sleeping and can remain in the that state for some time. If the robot gets too close to the machine it will be badly damaged. So, the robot is compelled to approach the machine and the human to help. But when it gets too close it's sensors tell it going closer will destroy it very soon. Evan a quick dash to get the human will do too much harm.
In the story the robot winds up running in a circle around the machine over and over again. Two compulsions at work in it's positronic brain. When other humans finally show up the robot has run a circular rut into the ground. The circle diameter being defined by a tug between the two compulsions to help the human and self-protection for the robot. Had the human's situation become worse the robot could override self-protection and go closer. The robot's joints were beginning to wear and had the joints begun to fail the robot could have overridden self-protection and gone in to help the human at the cost of its own destruction.
I think of this SCI-Fi story when i struggle with two somewhat opposing concepts. I have modified my fish keeping over the decades because i cannot just ignore the ethical issues completely and i want to have tanks with fish.
The OP has a personal dilemma which i do not anymore. live feeding on top of all else is difficult and can be expensive. Difficult in that having and keeping feeders is a chore.
The OP's ethical dilemma is how to achieve the end goal of feeding his fish in a manner which is ethical. The fact that he seeks a way to make live feeding "more ethical" indicates that his personal ethics are offended by it.
The suggested solution, i.e. sedated feeders (!), is so convoluted and so rife with concerns, both ethical and practical, that it is difficult to believe that this entire thread is not some sort of elaborate joke.
The way to make live feeding completely ethical, by virtually anyone's standards, is quite simple: don't do it. It's that simple. Don't do it for the entertainment that it seems to offer to some people...don't do it because of the health concerns of disease and parasite infection...don't do it because it is an inconvenient PITA...and most importantly, don't do it because it is virtually never required!
I use the term "virtually" only because there are exceptions to every rule...never say never. But in almost 6 decades of fish keeping, much of it heavily invested in big predatory fish and big tanks...I have never encountered a fish species or individual that could not be weaned onto frozen food or even dry pellets with little effort, certainly none that required more than a few weeks to do so and usually far less time. In fact, the most challenging "live food or nothing!" species are tiny micropredators like Seahorses and the like. Big piscivores and other large predators are never a problem.
No, you can't necessarily just starve 'em for a few days and then drop in a handful of Massivores; that sometimes works, but it's often required to actually do a little bit of creative thinking to fool them, or to manipulate their behaviour in the direction in which you want it to go. That's part of the joy of fishkeeping.
It certainly beats keeping a bucket of goldfish and trying to drug them or hypnotize them or brainwash them or some other such nonsense.
The suggested solution, i.e. sedated feeders (!), is so convoluted and so rife with concerns, both ethical and practical, that it is difficult to believe that this entire thread is not some sort of elaborate joke.
The way to make live feeding completely ethical, by virtually anyone's standards, is quite simple: don't do it. It's that simple. Don't do it for the entertainment that it seems to offer to some people...don't do it because of the health concerns of disease and parasite infection...don't do it because it is an inconvenient PITA...and most importantly, don't do it because it is virtually never required!
I use the term "virtually" only because there are exceptions to every rule...never say never. But in almost 6 decades of fish keeping, much of it heavily invested in big predatory fish and big tanks...I have never encountered a fish species or individual that could not be weaned onto frozen food or even dry pellets with little effort, certainly none that required more than a few weeks to do so and usually far less time. In fact, the most challenging "live food or nothing!" species are tiny micropredators like Seahorses and the like. Big piscivores and other large predators are never a problem.
No, you can't necessarily just starve 'em for a few days and then drop in a handful of Massivores; that sometimes works, but it's often required to actually do a little bit of creative thinking to fool them, or to manipulate their behaviour in the direction in which you want it to go. That's part of the joy of fishkeeping.
It certainly beats keeping a bucket of goldfish and trying to drug them or hypnotize them or brainwash them or some other such nonsense.
Hold on. Isn't frozen food - fish, shrimp, whatever - made from real fish and shrimp that used to be alive? And then were somehow deprived of life. Even flake food and pellets, that has got the remains of fish and shrimp that used to be free swimming, enjoying life and alive.
Fish eat fish. Makes no difference if you cannot see how they died.
Fish eat fish. Makes no difference if you cannot see how they died.
"Hold on"? Why? When did I ever give you the impression that I felt there was anything wrong with feeding even whole organisms, let alone ones that have been processed into pellets? I am indifferent to the fact of their deaths, and have been complicit in the deaths of countless numbers of animals ranging in size from far less than an inch to over a ton in weight. They've all provided food for either me and my family, or for...other things.
My beef is not with killing animals for food. In fact...my beef is with not killing them. Whether it's a biting fly or a buffalo, any animal should, IMHO, be afforded as quick and humane a death as possible. Prolonging their deaths, causing unnecessary pain, compounded with fear and panic, is simply unacceptable. Hell, I won't even use live minnows as bait while fishing...but have no problem pinching the heads to kill a hundred or more before popping them into the freezer, for later feeding.
My ethics, different from everyone else's. Personally, I question how a person can not see a distinction between a near-instantaneous death that minimizes terror and pain...and one that is the exact opposite of that.
Additionally, I assume that any self respecting predator would turn its nose up at prey that reeked of clove oil.
Hello; Many decades ago a story circulated about a teachers field trip. I was a public school teacher at the time. Seems there is difference in seeing how animals die. The story, true or not, was that a teacher took a middle school class on a field trip. They stopped at a fast-food hamburger joint for lunch. Kids had burgers. This part went fine.
Later they had a conducted tour of a slaughterhouse. Never was clear to me if slaughter operation actually happened but such was part of the story. So, some kids were "traumatized" is a main point of the story. Another is the teacher was fired. True or not i got both points from the story. One is do not do field trips to a slaughterhouse.
The other is some realities need to remain hidden to keep many people happy. Packaged meat in a market or a processed burger at a fast food joint are as close as many ever want to be to how the sausage is made. I was raised with a family who had food animals around. I saw them slaughtered. by the time i was six one of my chores was to build a fire under a wash tub of water and later catch two hens. Mom would ring their necks and throw them under a second washtub. I could hear them jumping around. I eventually would use a hatchet to chop off the heads as i could not ring off a head. I just let them run around for a bit. I always understood later in life what the praise running around like a chicken with its head cut off meant. Somehow the chickens could run real good but they kept running into things.
For me no trauma attached to this. Mom made some great meals from those birds. I did take the hint and never took a class to a slaughterhouse. I have an unverified notion that part of modern ills might relate to the distance so many have from basic life functions. I figure hunters have a chance to get it. Farmers children get it. Too many are shielded from basic realities anymore. Another example follows.
In the off topic thread i told a tale of a neighbors new dog harrassing me. Among the posts it was mentioned about a current govenor telling a story of having a personal dog who turned out to be mean and was a risk to others. She worked a ranch in real life so did what people do in real life. She took the problem dog to an isolated place and did what a responsible person does. put it down herself. Now she is villified and is the butt of jokes on a popular 10:00 PM comedy show. The host of that show I think is a city raised type, best i can tell. In the country if you have a bitter or a dog that kills livestock you put it down. If it is your dog you do it yourself once you are old enough.
For what it is worth after several times of fending off my neighbors dog and a tense verbal exchange with the man I called the county animal control officer. He showed up at their place. Now they keep it on a lead and it has not come after me. I take no joy in killing a dog so maybe this will work out.
Hello; For those who do not understand the tub of hot water, it is for pulling feathers. Mom would stick the now dead hens into the hot water. Somehow that made it easier to pluck the feathers off. Made some rank of a smell also. Along the line of some wet dogs but different.
You've just taken me back about 50 years to when we lived on a smallholding. My dad used to kill chickens for the table, and yes they can't half run without their heads!
I will never forget the smell of the innards as my mother gutted them.
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