do you have sympathy for feeder gold fish?
- Thread starter trojan09
- Start date
No sympathy really except for extreme cases of how they are housed sometimes. Read your prepared fish food labels tho. Many of them have "fish meal" or whatever- ie ground up fish in pellet form. Out of sight, out of mind for most people. You aren't saving fish lives by not feeding the cute comets to your fish. I have had feeders manage to survive for quite a while (and even one instance when a fish-sitting roommate somehow managed to have a "feeder" he bought kill one of my pet fish). I am betting that the fish mongers/grinders don't miss too many at Hikari tho. Whatever lets u sleep at night.
Kind of ironic that we have so much sympathy for feeders being mistreated. Most PETA members would probably disagree with the keeping of any fish in a home aquarium. We all have to admit, at the very least, that our pet fish are FAR more crowded in our aquariums than they would be in the wild. By keeping fish, we have essentially acknowledged that their lives are not as valued as our own. If we thought of their "souls" or rights as living beings (on par with human rights) we obviously would not pay to have them captured or bred in containers so that we could put them in our own cage for our enjoyment.
Lupin;3602163; said:
Fact is, most people fail to comprehend the importance of nutritional value when it comes to the foods they themselves eat, let alone what they feed their fish...
My guppies are fed high quality food, so I know my fish are getting something decent when they get the occasional treat. Which might be once every 2 weeks.
really? sympathy? there are tons per minuet being harvested from the oceans and rivers world wide for human consumption...
WARNING :RANT follows
i find it so hypocritical to feel "remorse and sympathy" for feeders by the SAME people keeping wild animals in glass cages...i care for my animals and feel responsible for them BUT it is what it is...to take the "moral" high ground and say its wrong for feeders to "suffer" while maintaining dozens of fish in tanks for your own amusement is so utterly pathetic...this hobby is the reason feeders are crammed into tanks at the LFS...unless you would be willing to pay 1$ a pc for feeders..courage of conviction has died in our society...everyone wants it both ways...im just sick of the self righteous "animal rights" people who try to inflect human emotion on animals...if your sick of seeing the SPCA kill hundreds of cats and dogs an hour STOP KEEPING CATS AND DOGS...stop "adopting" them ...cause i guarantee whoever dumped them went out and bought a new puppy 2 weeks later ...if you think its inhumane to feed a wild animal its natural prey why the hell are you keeping carnivores? i understand the disease fears with feeders but sympathy?
End rant
t-shirt i read..."I didn't evolve to the top of the food chain to eat grass"
WARNING :RANT follows
i find it so hypocritical to feel "remorse and sympathy" for feeders by the SAME people keeping wild animals in glass cages...i care for my animals and feel responsible for them BUT it is what it is...to take the "moral" high ground and say its wrong for feeders to "suffer" while maintaining dozens of fish in tanks for your own amusement is so utterly pathetic...this hobby is the reason feeders are crammed into tanks at the LFS...unless you would be willing to pay 1$ a pc for feeders..courage of conviction has died in our society...everyone wants it both ways...im just sick of the self righteous "animal rights" people who try to inflect human emotion on animals...if your sick of seeing the SPCA kill hundreds of cats and dogs an hour STOP KEEPING CATS AND DOGS...stop "adopting" them ...cause i guarantee whoever dumped them went out and bought a new puppy 2 weeks later ...if you think its inhumane to feed a wild animal its natural prey why the hell are you keeping carnivores? i understand the disease fears with feeders but sympathy?
End rant
t-shirt i read..."I didn't evolve to the top of the food chain to eat grass"
PRICELESS!!! 
On the day I moved into my house years ago I went along my new street to introduce myself to the new neighbors. I was wearing old clothes because of the move. My T-shirt (which I had owned for nearly 10yrs) was from a BBQ place in AZ. The back had a pic of a smilling pig and read: P.E.T.A.- People who Enjoy Tasting Animals. I went over to my neighbors across the street and chatted for a minute. When I turned to walk back over to my place the wife started laughing. I turned, thinking I had sat in something crazy. She told me that her and her husband were PETA members. I thought they were joking cuz they thought the shirt was kinda funny...Nope. They are true card-carrying post-hippy PETA-donating animal rights activists. I still live across the street from them and have had numerous lighthearted debates about how ridiculous PETA is... but I will never live down that glorious first impression. (If I would have known they were PETA, I would have made sure to wear the shirt anyway. My neighbors know I think they are crazy, but we get along- it takes all types).azazal;4329454; said:
I am sure somewhere on the internet there is some info about PETA's stance on the aquarium hobby. Props to whoever can get it posted here first.
I breed mollies/platies, no inbreeding the breeders are kept as pets and all the babies are seperated into different 45g tubs depending on size. They are raised to full adulthood before being fed and always live comfortably.
nutritional value is no question, the feeders are only a small part of the diet.
all that said, no I don't feel sorry for them I treat them well, the 45g tubs are decorated and filtered just like a tank, the only differece being the lack of a viewing window.
the fish are treated well all the way up to their death. but cmon this is a part of nature, at some point something has to eat something else. and it is sporting to watch a 13" O chase down a 3" mollie.
nutritional value is no question, the feeders are only a small part of the diet.
all that said, no I don't feel sorry for them I treat them well, the 45g tubs are decorated and filtered just like a tank, the only differece being the lack of a viewing window.
the fish are treated well all the way up to their death. but cmon this is a part of nature, at some point something has to eat something else. and it is sporting to watch a 13" O chase down a 3" mollie.
azazal;4329454; said:
Unless you hunt/fish you are just as full of it as the PETA people, you are a mooch predator. As far as ASPCA again total crap. Spay and neuter your animals prevents litters not keeping them. A basic biology class might be a good idea. Also adopting abandoned pets doesn't add to the problem BUYING from pet stores fuels the breeders.
Back on topic. I can't really feel sympathy for the fish being eaten. If it's born it will die, no avoiding that. Once it dies it will get eaten, even humans rot in the ground. So long as the kill is quick (even minutes) beats the hell out of rotting in a nursing home sometimes for years. So I do feel bad about their living conditions but dieing is a function of living. Until that changes I can't see the logic in feeling bad about it. That said it is our responsibility to treat our food humanly. This has the added advantage of getting your wife to let you get a $8K Barret for deer hunting, instant kill guaranteed
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