ethics conflict with fishkeeping

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jloos1988

jloos1988

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Nov 15, 2006
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canton, MI
the other day i caught a 14 inch smallmouth bass and put it in my tank which is totally legal and i know alot of people have a problem with caging a wild fish, and i dont like it either, but this beauty really got me. and after a day or two i got to thinking that i had ripped this fishes freedom from it and taken away its true happiness so today i released it back into its lake. and after i got to thinking that the other fish in my tank must be a bit unhappy to. what you guys think?
 
would you rather live in the street never knowing when you'll next have a meal or when someone bigger than you is going to come by and kill you.
or in a small apartment eating everyday (maybe, depending on feeding sched.) and never working for a meal?
ethics do come into play at some point, but untimately the responsibility lies with the individual.
 
I think keeping fish from the wild is ok. Just as BIGgourami says, would you rather take risks, but dicide your own fate, or have life planned out for you, but knowing you will be safe?
Becides, how did the ancestors of our aquarium fish get there? Yup, they were all from the wild.
 
Apart from domesticated pets (ie some dog and cat species) I dont think keeping any animals is ethically justified. Some domesticated species would willingly choose to live in captivity but all other animals have not. So what we can logically deduce from this is that all aquarium fish keeping is unethical. The real problem is that emotion and logic do not need to have any connection. The logical answer to your question is YES - fishkeeping is unethical but so are many other things. Eating meat for example. A more important question is whether you can JUSTIFY fishkeeping to yourself... and if you cant then perhaps you shouldnt keep fish.

If you want some philosophcal fodder; Do you think humans domesticated dogs or did dogs manipulate humans into caring and line breeding and providing for them?
 
of course the fish would like to be in a lake but i'm sure they like the eazy food and no worrys of a bigger fish to if you can take care of it it will live much longer in a tank most likely
 
think about how many fish we keep come from the wild anyways, its no big deal. the only problem was putting it in your tank and then releasing it again, that could possibly introduce "stuff" from your tank into the lake/rivers eco-system.
 
I say as long as the fish is not endangered take it... we use to have tons of bass at our lake house and then some idiot let some zebra muscles loose in our lake and now they have disappeared from by our house... You never know when they will be gone anyways...
 
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