The humble fish.

[esoxlucius]

I was thinking the other day about the benefits which the humble fish grants us on a daily basis, and how much the fish is taken for granted.

We can keep them in aquariums and, as hobbyists on a fish forum, we all know how rewarding that is. We can go and fish for them as sport for our enjoyment, and again, any angler will tell you how fantastic fishing is. They are also one of the healthiest foods to eat. Fish is hands down my favourite food.

Now from a selfish human point of view, keeping fish, catching fish and eating fish is a win, win, win from our perspective, but what about the fishes perspective?

Kept in undersized aquariums, often very badly. Caught on hooks, and more than often whacked over the head, and if that's not bad enough we eat them too. Maybe not so much fun for the fish when all told!

How many other animals do we enjoy, yet abuse at the same time as much as fish. I think the humble fish is top of the list.

 

[GolemGolem]

Hmm, good one. I was thinking through various pets, livestock, and game and I didn't come across anything that hit all the boxes like fish. That is how we love though, and all the invasive fish speak to their continued resilience. How about silkworms or pugs? Things though our husbandry have become utterly dependent upon us?

 

[esoxlucius]

Hmm, good one. I was thinking through various pets, livestock, and game and I didn't come across anything that hit all the boxes like fish. That is how we love though, and all the invasive fish speak to their continued resilience. How about silkworms or pugs? Things though our husbandry have become utterly dependent upon us?

I honestly don't think there is anything. I suppose the question hits home even more if you are directly involved in all three aspects, as I am, and no doubt many others on the forum, ie, you are a hobbyist, and an angler, and you eat fish regularly too.

No other animal is a big a part of my life than fish, and I can't think of one animal that fits the same criteria.

I think it's an interesting observation.

 

[GolemGolem]

It is interesting. So how do you keep your relationship with fish intact while reducing the abuse as much as practical?

 

[esoxlucius]

It is interesting. So how do you keep your relationship with fish intact while reducing the abuse as much as practical?

Well, from a hobbyists point of view you try, we all try, to look after our fish the best we can. If you have the basics of this hobby dialled in it is pretty easy to care for the needs of your fish.

From an angling point of view my approach is purely catch and release. I use barbless hooks only and don't keep fish in keep nets until the end of my session. But that is policy on many fisheries now anyway.

From an eating point of view I suppose it's somewhat of a grey area. I'd like to think all the fish I consume are line caught, and not by the huge trawlers, but that would be very naive of me.

 

[jjohnwm]

I'm a fishkeeper, an ardent admirer of nature, an animal lover, an avid hunter and fisherman and a confirmed carnivore. I don't see any of those things as being at odds with each other; they are all part and parcel of the same philosophy: a deep respect for nature and natural processes.

Fish are not a bigger part of the human involvement with nature than any other birds and animals, probably not even as big a part as such things as dogs or honey bees. Fish are...to me, at least...a link to nature that is available for constant and easy observation right in the comfort of my home. My goal is to provide them with conditions as close to those they find in nature as possible; the aesthetic of a living, planted aquarium in the home is similar to that of a window full of potted plants, but magnified several fold. But, I'll admit that there is no real emotional component to my interaction with fish; I simply don't believe they are capable of emotional attachment to a human, and I don't feel a true emotional attachment to them. If I were somehow faced with making a choice between my fish and my dog, for example, I wouldn't need any time to mull it over; my tanks would be empty and dry the same afternoon.

Keeping fishtanks is very much akin to hunting and angling; all of these activities are a way to immerse oneself in natural processes and actually participate in them, rather than just watching them.

I confess to a certain bemusement when I hear someone state that they "love" their aquarium fish, and that they would not eat fish because of that love. To me, that falls into a similar category as vegetarians who keep dogs and cats but force them to subsist on soy-based meatless diets; these folks have a right to think whatever they wish, although it makes me sad for the animals involved in such indirect abuse.

 

[GolemGolem]

I'm fine with all three both humans and fish are great and terrible. Most the fish we like to eat also eat fish. Some seem to just **** with other fish out of curiosity, but I'm really quite great at finding something to feel guilty about.
So at the end of the day as long as we leave things as good or better than we found them, we're fine right? We dam or overfish a river, start a hatchery. Then new issues happen (going to your first post likely because of our limited human perspective). So we try to fix some of those, while getting all defensive about the ones we can't or don't want to yet and just keep going?

 

[jjohnwm]

Ya know, Esox, your post got me thinking...yeah, dangerous, I know...and there is a point that we are all missing. We are talking about "fish"...and comparing their impact on our lives to dogs, silkworms, honeybees, etc...but a comparison like that really isn't appropriate.

All those other species, and all the others that affect us...are all single species. All dogs, big or small, are exactly the same species of animal: Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris, depending upon which scientist you want to believe. In fact, if you subscribe to that second name, then all the diverse dogs on the planet are just a single subspecies of the wolf.

Similarly, all the various breeds of chickens are all the same species. All honeybees are a single species. All of them...dogs, cats, cows, horses, goats, sheep and all the rest...are single species.

But then we compare them to "fish"...but the term "fish" literally refers to an entire class of the zoological tree. A "class" contains multiple smaller divisions called "orders", each of which contains multiple divisions known as "families", each containing multiple "genera" containing multiple "species". In a phylogenetic sense, calling something a "fish" only narrows its identity down to the same level as calling a dog a "mammal".

It certainly isn't fair to compare the impact that a single species like the dog or the goat has had on humanity to the combined effect of the entire class Pisces (fish) which contains something like 32,000 recognized species. There are more species of fish on earth than there are species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians combined!

You've posed a question here that can't really be answered in any truly meaningful way...asking what species of animal life has had as profound an impact on our existence as the combined total of 32,000 species of fish!!!

Really, sir, not your best work...

 

[esoxlucius]

Ya know, Esox, your post got me thinking...yeah, dangerous, I know...and there is a point that we are all missing. We are talking about "fish"...and comparing their impact on our lives to dogs, silkworms, honeybees, etc...but a comparison like that really isn't appropriate.

All those other species, and all the others that affect us...are all single species. All dogs, big or small, are exactly the same species of animal: Canis familiaris or Canis lupus familiaris, depending upon which scientist you want to believe. In fact, if you subscribe to that second name, then all the diverse dogs on the planet are just a single subspecies of the wolf.

Similarly, all the various breeds of chickens are all the same species. All honeybees are a single species. All of them...dogs, cats, cows, horses, goats, sheep and all the rest...are single species.

But then we compare them to "fish"...but the term "fish" literally refers to an entire class of the zoological tree. A "class" contains multiple smaller divisions called "orders", each of which contains multiple divisions known as "families", each containing multiple "genera" containing multiple "species". In a phylogenetic sense, calling something a "fish" only narrows its identity down to the same level as calling a dog a "mammal".

It certainly isn't fair to compare the impact that a single species like the dog or the goat has had on humanity to the combined effect of the entire class Pisces (fish) which contains something like 32,000 recognized species. There are more species of fish on earth than there are species of mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians combined!

You've posed a question here that can't really be answered in any truly meaningful way...asking what species of animal life has had as profound an impact on our existence as the combined total of 32,000 species of fish!!!

Really, sir, not your best work...

The idea of the post was to come up with a species of animal which we can keep as pets, that we can hunt for as in sport, and that we readily eat too. It's as simple as that. The fish gives us all those things.

I cannot think of any other animal that covers all three bases.

You may be able to come up with an oddball animal that in some far flung country they keep them as pets, hunt them as sport, and eat them. But i suspect it will be in a real minority.

I'm talking on the scale of fish. Millions keep them as pets, millions hunt for them as sport, and billions eat them.

Give me the name of another animal.

 

[jjohnwm]

But a fish isn't just a fish; the way you are using the term, a fish is any of 32,000 species of fish!

We eat tuna, and angle for them...but don't keep them in tanks. We keep Neon Tetras and Tiger Barbs...but don't eat them or angle for them. What species of fish get the whole treatment?

The only one I can think of is the Common Carp. Some people consider them a delicacy on the table; many people fish for them enthusiastically; and, in the form of Koi, we keep them in captivity. But, certainly, they aren't as important in any one of those areas as numerous other species of fish are.

I'll use the term "bird" the way you are using "fish". We hunt birds, we eat birds, we watch them in the wild, we keep them both as pets and as livestock, we even get feathers and down from them...but there isn't a single species of bird that does all those things for us. It's the same for fish.