How do you know they dont have emotions? Fish are animals and so are humans. What is the diffrence fish live in water and and we live on the earth? I persoanly think they have feeling. When my ray was out growing his tank he was a completly diffent ray not moving not geting excited when food hit the water. With in a week of him going into a bigger pond he was back to normal. Just my opinion.JD7.62;2294211; said:Fish ARE NOT PEOPLE! The have biological needs, not emotional needs!
To Gr8, I dont think you can put just any fish in a bare tank like that and them be "happy." Some fish NEED places to hide as their instincts dictate to what type of surroundings they should be in.
Rays are large predatory fish that, as adults, have little to fear. They dont need a rock to get under or floating grass to hide in. THAT is why, IN MY OPINION, if an animal like a fish is given what it needs to thrive, it doesnt need any thing else for its "emotional" well being. For example look at snake breeders who keep their herps in "rack" systems. Oh yeah, snakes are a bit more advanced then fish too!
Its been said before but I will say it again. If these rays were in even a 600gallon tank, its just a very very minute fraction of the water it would be able to roam in the wild. So, if indeed, these fish need a larger tank to "feel" happy whats to say that 600gallon is big enough? Afterall its just a miniscule amount of space compared to its wild brothers.
breeding in the small tank (3ft x 2fh x 2ft)
- Thread starter jacochoi
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stingray man;2294557; said:
Are you serious?
It doesn't take a degree in neurology to know that the human brain is far more developed in the areas needed for emotional reactions.
Im not talking stress due to the animals need for certain environmental factors needed for the animal to "feel" comfortable.
I'm in school for an accounting degree so I dont REALLY know too much about fish neurology, but from my basic understanding from the different classes I have taken I HIGHLY doubt fish have the meotional needs any where near what a human does..heck even a dog!
Any biologists in here that can leave any input?
JD7.62;2296789; said:Are you serious?
It doesn't take a degree in neurology to know that the human brain is far more developed in the areas needed for emotional reactions.
Im not talking stress due to the animals need for certain environmental factors needed for the animal to "feel" comfortable.
I'm in school for an accounting degree so I dont REALLY know too much about fish neurology, but from my basic understanding from the different classes I have taken I HIGHLY doubt fish have the meotional needs any where near what a human does..heck even a dog!
Any biologists in here that can leave any input?
not a biologist, but I agree that they have no emotional needs. there are two main drives for a fish, eat and breed... I'm pretty sure the main reason they were put here on earth was to reproduce, just like humans or dogs or cats. The fish are obviously coping well because there are pups, we all know that a fish won't breed under stress, let alone a ray...
the fish bred ; the fish aren't stressed
I actually just sent an email to an ichthyologist progessor at the university of West Florida regarding the "emotions" a fish is capable or not capable of having. We will see what she has to say.
I have a couple examples that might be worth considering...
First, from the dog breeding world. There is a huge variety of people who breed dogs. You get individuals who want fido the family dog to breed once so the human family can experience that, you get serious professional breeders who show their dogs and do everything they can to manage the breeding and consider genetics, and then you have 'puppy mills'. Now, dogs will breed under a huge variety of conditions, but I'm sure you will agree that the quality of life is vastly different for these dogs. An animal breeding does not necessarily mean the animal's life is not stressful, perhaps even inhumane.
Example number 2: We try to say that humans are different from the animal world. Every time we come up with a definition of animal intelligence and later find out that there is an non-human animal that shares this trait we change our definition. Fish have demonstrated that they exhibit play behavior. Fish can learn and be trained. Do fish have the same emotional state as humans- almost definetly not. Can fish recognized poor environmental conditions and suffer from poor wellfare- almost certianly. Will they (and snakes and many other animal) still breed in these conditions- yes. Because we can keep and sometimes breed animals in 'less than ideal' conditions, should we?
First, from the dog breeding world. There is a huge variety of people who breed dogs. You get individuals who want fido the family dog to breed once so the human family can experience that, you get serious professional breeders who show their dogs and do everything they can to manage the breeding and consider genetics, and then you have 'puppy mills'. Now, dogs will breed under a huge variety of conditions, but I'm sure you will agree that the quality of life is vastly different for these dogs. An animal breeding does not necessarily mean the animal's life is not stressful, perhaps even inhumane.
Example number 2: We try to say that humans are different from the animal world. Every time we come up with a definition of animal intelligence and later find out that there is an non-human animal that shares this trait we change our definition. Fish have demonstrated that they exhibit play behavior. Fish can learn and be trained. Do fish have the same emotional state as humans- almost definetly not. Can fish recognized poor environmental conditions and suffer from poor wellfare- almost certianly. Will they (and snakes and many other animal) still breed in these conditions- yes. Because we can keep and sometimes breed animals in 'less than ideal' conditions, should we?
I had my rays crammed in a 180 gallon. Turned them loose in a 1K+++ gallon pond. NO ONE can tell me they weren't happy. Colored up better, ate better, and way way more active. It could all be coincidence.... But I personally do NOT think so.
Got her response...
I am going to correspond with her regarding the last little bit some more. I want to ask her as to what, in her opinion, would constitute as a stressful environement for a ray.
Very interesting question!!
First of all, here's a link to a paper that was published about stingray brains- it is a different species but the parts and info are pretty close. All this does is give an overview of the structure of the brain, but you can also get what parts of the brain are more "dominant" than others.....
http://www.nova.edu/ocean/profiles/walker/walker_sherman.pdf
And here's one specifically on memory in F/W rays- pretty neat:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/v107h2481145g60p/fulltext.pdf
As for the "emotions" of rays, they don't appear to have a well-developed limbic system, which humans do so I doubt the physical ability to manifest "emotion" is there in rays. I think as humans we have a tendency to anthropomorphize- that is, think of animals as capable of what we 'feel". What we try to avoid when keeping fish in captivity is stress (and not just our own! lol). Humans tend to think of "stress" in its emotional sense, but we have physiological consequences of stress that we don't often realize. As for a fish's captive environment, we strive to duplicate their natural environment to avoid undue stress. It's not that your fish will get "angry", "sad", or otherwise emotional, but that the physical stress of something "not quite right" in its environment can take a toll on its health, with the extent of the consequences parallelling the extreme of the "stressful" environment. I'm happy to elaborate on that as much as I can....
Thanks for making me think today...
~~Karon
I am going to correspond with her regarding the last little bit some more. I want to ask her as to what, in her opinion, would constitute as a stressful environement for a ray.
