Do fish feel pain?
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I cannot comment on the physical symptoms in the pictures, my best guess would be tumors. However I can offer this re "do fish feel pain?"
Key, B. Fish do not feel pain and its implications for understanding phenomenal consciousness. Biol Philos 30, 149–165 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-014-9469-4
In order to feel pain requires that an organism has certain neurophysical structures which fish lack.
Key, B. Fish do not feel pain and its implications for understanding phenomenal consciousness. Biol Philos 30, 149–165 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-014-9469-4
full paper here https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-014-9469-4
In order to feel pain requires that an organism has certain neurophysical structures which fish lack.
Hello; Fascinating that several members have decided to discredit the OP's own statements and come up with a diagnosis of tumors and fungus. The OP told us what happened. Unless we choose to not believe the OP the situation is the fish were damaged when sucked into the intake pipe of a powerful pump.
My take is the thread is a question about fish and pain. TwoTankAmin presents an abstract which is so far the only researched bit of information. I get the premise. That being fish do not have a nervous system and neurons matching mammals and birds. Fish do have a nervous system to be sure. Sophisticated in it's own way. Not clear that pain as we feel it has to be the same for other animals such as fish. Fish do feel something.
Growing up around fishermen and keeping fish since 1959 has helped me form an opinion. Several fishermen have told me fish do not feel pain over the decades. Guess the way fish can be treated by some that is a convenient stance. I want it to be true by the way, but have suspicions it is not so clear cut.
I'm sure the fish were indeed trapped by or on an intake pipe; I simply believe that there is often more than one issue at play, and this is a perfect example. Was the pipe just an open-ended suction intake, with no grill or strainer at all while being cleaned? That could certainly trap a fish...maybe even two...and it definitely wouldn't do the fish any good, but as stated earlier in the thread, it's difficult to see how the damage could end up looking like this.
I'm a fisherman as well, and I have often heard that fish don't feel pain. Certainly I've seen cases where it's apparent that an injury which would be excruciating to a human results in no apparent discomfort to the fish; the most common case is a hook in the mouth, which we tend to think of in human terms, i.e. the pain one of us would feel if we were to experience such an event. But the mouth of a fish is mostly bone and cartilage, very little soft tissue, and a hook seems to be no more than a minor inconvenience. Several times we've had a fish take a lure and be hooked, only to swim over to a companion's lure and engulf that one as well. And there have been times when I personally have caught the same individual fish twice, or even several times, in rapid succession, unhooking and releasing it each time only to have it come back and hit again. Not the action expected of a creature if it is in agony.
Personally, I think that most fishermen say and perhaps even believe that fish feel no pain because they need to be able to excuse their actions in catching the fish. As S skjl47 stated, it's similar with aquarists, who observe a fish that has suffered some traumatic injury or disease that will eventually kill it...but rather than end the animal's suffering (or what we would experience as suffering) quickly, they allow it to slowly die over hours or even days because they have no stomach for what should be done. We humans do like to rationalize our actions, in these cases by saying that the fish isn't really feeling pain, so...
So...do they feel "pain"? Who knows? What defines "pain"? It's difficult to imagine that there is not some sort of sensation approximating what we call "pain". An animal that is completely unaware of damage to its body, and thus does nothing to escape from this sensation, would seem to be at a survival disadvantage. But, there are those fish that just keep biting, so...
I'm certain of one thing: if a fish or other creature is stuck to a suction intake, don't just peel the fish off...turn off the pump first.
I'm a fisherman as well, and I have often heard that fish don't feel pain. Certainly I've seen cases where it's apparent that an injury which would be excruciating to a human results in no apparent discomfort to the fish; the most common case is a hook in the mouth, which we tend to think of in human terms, i.e. the pain one of us would feel if we were to experience such an event. But the mouth of a fish is mostly bone and cartilage, very little soft tissue, and a hook seems to be no more than a minor inconvenience. Several times we've had a fish take a lure and be hooked, only to swim over to a companion's lure and engulf that one as well. And there have been times when I personally have caught the same individual fish twice, or even several times, in rapid succession, unhooking and releasing it each time only to have it come back and hit again. Not the action expected of a creature if it is in agony.
Personally, I think that most fishermen say and perhaps even believe that fish feel no pain because they need to be able to excuse their actions in catching the fish. As S skjl47 stated, it's similar with aquarists, who observe a fish that has suffered some traumatic injury or disease that will eventually kill it...but rather than end the animal's suffering (or what we would experience as suffering) quickly, they allow it to slowly die over hours or even days because they have no stomach for what should be done. We humans do like to rationalize our actions, in these cases by saying that the fish isn't really feeling pain, so...
So...do they feel "pain"? Who knows? What defines "pain"? It's difficult to imagine that there is not some sort of sensation approximating what we call "pain". An animal that is completely unaware of damage to its body, and thus does nothing to escape from this sensation, would seem to be at a survival disadvantage. But, there are those fish that just keep biting, so...
I'm certain of one thing: if a fish or other creature is stuck to a suction intake, don't just peel the fish off...turn off the pump first.
All fisherman will probably tell you fish don't feel pain, it's their way of justifying that what they do is perfectly fine for the fish. Personally I reckon fish may feel some sensation, but whether it's actual pain, in the sense we know pain, I don't know.
Is there a "sensation" difference for the fish between a very lightly lip hooked fish with a small barbless hook and a deep throated hooked fish with large barbed treble hooks, like you often see on lures?
I'll take the argument that bony lipped fish may have very few, if any, nerve endings in their lips. But fish I regularly used to catch, such as carp, barbel and tench have thick rubbery lips. All three species have barbels too which are extremely sensitive and help the fish detect food, which suggests to me that their lips could be extremely sensitive to trauma, such as a hook.
And the classic conundrum.....if fish don't feel pain then why is it essential to kill them quickly and cleanly with a priest just at the right place on the head, as not to make them suffer!!!!
Is there a "sensation" difference for the fish between a very lightly lip hooked fish with a small barbless hook and a deep throated hooked fish with large barbed treble hooks, like you often see on lures?
I'll take the argument that bony lipped fish may have very few, if any, nerve endings in their lips. But fish I regularly used to catch, such as carp, barbel and tench have thick rubbery lips. All three species have barbels too which are extremely sensitive and help the fish detect food, which suggests to me that their lips could be extremely sensitive to trauma, such as a hook.
And the classic conundrum.....if fish don't feel pain then why is it essential to kill them quickly and cleanly with a priest just at the right place on the head, as not to make them suffer!!!!
It's that rationalization thing again...done for the fisherman, rather than for the fish.
I haven't heard those tools called "priests" since I was a kid. Nowadays...they're fish bonkers!
As an aside, a switch from barbed hooks to barbless results in little or no difference in percentage of fish landed, but makes hook removal infinitely easier and reduces damage (and likely "pain") to the fish. My province of residence, Manitoba, mandates barbless hooks and although I was concerned at first, a decade of fishing here has made me wish I had made the change earlier. Plus...when you manage to impale yourself on a hook while fishing...it now pops right out with little more than a curse and a grimace.
Barbed hooks are...I'm trying to resist saying it, but I can't...they're barbaric!
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It's that rationalization thing again...done for the fisherman, rather than for the fish.
I haven't heard those tools called "priests" since I was a kid. Nowadays...they're fish bonkers!
As an aside, a switch from barbed hooks to barbless results in little or no difference in percentage of fish landed, but makes hook removal infinitely easier and reduces damage (and likely "pain") to the fish. My province of residence, Manitoba, mandates barbless hooks and although I was concerned at first, a decade of fishing here has made me wish I had made the change earlier. Plus...when you manage to impale yourself on a hook while fishing...it now pops right out with little more than a curse and a grimace.
Barbed hooks are...I'm trying to resist saying it, but I can't...they're barbaric!
I remember back in the day, ashamedly so too, when I was young, I used to fish for jack pike with a large barbed treble hook with a huge single earthworm as bait. I had a tendency back in the day, due to my naivety, to fish slightly overdepth and anchor my bait firmly on the bottom to avoid drifting.
The pike would nearly always take the worm deep down before my float even twitched! Once I landed said pike there was no way I was cutting the line and losing my shiny treble hook, so I'd "dig" it out. The fish would always swim off afterwards but those which weren't so lucky at my hands, and died at the "operating table" as it were, I'd take home and eat!
I look back now and truly hope and pray that fish indeed don't feel pain at the hands of anglers, because I no doubt dished out my fair share in my informative years of angling.
Nowadays, as you say, it's all barbless hooks, unhooking mats too for big fish so they aren't thrashing around on gravel or something, keepnet bans and minimal size restrictions for landing nets. Never before in the angling world have commercial fishery fish been so well looked after.
I look back at my actions as a young angler and I, too, cringe at some of those memories.
Everyone has their own ethics and morals, and they change and evolve as we age. I am an avid hunter and eat very little meat that I didn't procure myself by that method...but causing "pain" is something that I can't abide and a quick humane kill is of paramount importance to me.
Similarly, I love fishing, but I haven't used live bait in many years and will never go back to it. I'm not squeamish, not even close...but I will never impale a live worm, fish, frog or anything else on a hook, then dangle it in the water and hope that it's anguished contortions entice a fish to eat it. My now-65-year-old sensibilities just won't allow it. For me, angling is a sporting event, with very few fish actually being kept and eaten...and anything I catch is caught on artificial lures or, perhaps, homemade dough baits for carp. If I were starving on a desert island, it would be different...but I'm not, so I can afford to indulge my idiosyncracies.
Everyone has their own ethics and morals, and they change and evolve as we age. I am an avid hunter and eat very little meat that I didn't procure myself by that method...but causing "pain" is something that I can't abide and a quick humane kill is of paramount importance to me.
Similarly, I love fishing, but I haven't used live bait in many years and will never go back to it. I'm not squeamish, not even close...but I will never impale a live worm, fish, frog or anything else on a hook, then dangle it in the water and hope that it's anguished contortions entice a fish to eat it. My now-65-year-old sensibilities just won't allow it. For me, angling is a sporting event, with very few fish actually being kept and eaten...and anything I catch is caught on artificial lures or, perhaps, homemade dough baits for carp. If I were starving on a desert island, it would be different...but I'm not, so I can afford to indulge my idiosyncracies.
i'm no expert on goldfish. Found this on web. Appear to be tumors.
What to Do About Tumors & Growths in Your Goldfish | Hepper
What to Do About Tumors & Growths in Your Goldfish | Hepper
