What we always knew: fish feel pain

Even though fish don’t have the same brain structures that humans do—fish do not have a neocortex, for example—Dr. Ian Duncan reminds us that we “have to look at behaviour and physiology,” not just anatomy. “It’s possible for a brain to evolve in different ways,” he says. “That’s what is happening in the fish line. It’s evolved in some other ways in [other] parts of the brain to receive pain.”

Numerous studies in recent years have demonstrated that fish feel and react to pain. For example, when rainbow trout had painful acetic acid or bee venom injected into their sensitive lips, they stopped eating, they rocked back and forth on the tank floor, and they rubbed their lips against the tank walls. Fish who were injected with a harmless saline solution didn’t display this abnormal behavior.

Trout are “neophobic,” meaning that they actively avoid new objects. But those who were injected with acetic acid showed little response to a brightly colored Lego tower that was placed in their tank, suggesting that their attention was focused instead on the pain that they were experiencing. In contrast, trout injected with saline—as well as those who were given painkillers following the painful acid injection—displayed the usual degree of caution regarding the new object. Similar results have been demonstrated in human patients suffering from painful medical conditions: Medical professionals have long known that pain interferes with patients’ normal cognitive abilities.

A study in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science found that fish who are exposed to painful heat later show signs of fear and wariness—illustrating that fish both experience pain and can remember it.

A study by scientists at Queen’s University Belfast proved that fish learn to avoid pain, just like other animals. Rebecca Dunlop, one of the researchers, said, “This paper shows that pain avoidance in fish doesn’t seem to be a reflex response, rather one that is learned, remembered and is changed according to different circumstances. Therefore, if fish can perceive pain, then angling cannot continue to be considered a noncruel sport.”

Similarly, researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada concluded that fish feel fear when they’re chased and that their behavior is more than simply a reflex. The “fish are frightened and … they prefer not being frightened,” said Dr. Duncan, who headed the study.

Other studies have shown that fish communicate distress when nets are dipped into their tanks or they are otherwise threatened. Researcher William Tavolga, for example, found that fish grunt when they receive an electric shock. In addition, the fish begin to grunt as soon as they see the electrode, in anticipation of the painful experience to follow.

In an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Counterpoint program, Dr. Culum Brown of Macquarie University explained that the stress that fish experience when they are pulled from the water into an environment in which they cannot breathe is “exactly the same as a person drowning.”

And Dr. Lynne Sneddon, who led a groundbreaking two-year study by scientists at Edinburgh University and the Roslin Institute in the U.K. proving that fish do feel pain, stated, “Really, it’s kind of a moral question. Is your angling more important than the pain to the fish?”

Anglers may not want to think about it, but fishing is nothing more than a cruel blood sport. When fish are impaled on an angler’s hook and yanked out of the water, it’s not a game to them. They are scared and in pain and fighting for their lives. Michael Stoskopf, professor of Aquatics, Wildlife, and Zoologic Medicine and of Molecular and Environmental Toxicology at North Carolina University, said, “It would be an unjustified error to assume that fish do not perceive pain in these situations merely because their responses do not match those traditionally seen in mammals subjected to chronic pain.”

Dr. Michael Fox, D.V.M., Ph.D., put it this way: “Even though fish don’t scream [audibly to humans] when they are in pain and anguish, their behavior should be evidence enough of their suffering when they are hooked or netted. They struggle, endeavoring to escape and, by so doing, demonstrate they have a will to survive.”

Please leave fish off your forks. Click here to learn how to go vegan, or order PETA’s free vegetarian/vegan starter kit for great tips and recipes to help you make the transition to a fish-free vegan diet.