Do Fish Feel Pain?

Comments

January 13, 2009 at 10:04 am

(1) Rsmith says:

I don’t think they feel pain like mammals do; they probably have some sort of perception that something is doing damage to them and it is probably unpleasant enough that they would avoid future damaging stimuli.

Hooks might be unpleasant to them, but then again it beats being cut in half by a shark or eaten alive by an octopus.

January 15, 2009 at 7:46 am

(2) Larry says:

I cannot see how fish can feel pain. At least in the way that people do. It is just plain common sense that if a person was hooked in the mouth, he/she would not start running the other way and pulling harder thus making the pain from the hook worse by doing so.

I know that if I was hooked in the mouth, with a hook, that I would not do anything to pull harder against the hook much less fight as hard as I could against the pull of the line.

The way I see it, a fish must feel nervous because it has something happening that is not normal. It must feel like something is trying to capture it as the line pull gives it a sense that it is being pulled away from it’s location. So as a result, it fights as much as it can to get away from it’s captors.

The hook itself does not seem to bother the fish, but the pull of the line does. When you have to release a fish with a hook in it, or lose a fish because the line breaks, it will not swim away in wild panic. It just swims away normally, so it is not the hook itself that causes the fish to fight so hard, but it is the pull of the line that causes that reaction.

Also, I have caught fish that had hooks in them, and yet, they were eating fine just the same. just think about it, if you had a hook in your mouth for some time, would you be ignoring it and eating normally?

Larry

January 19, 2009 at 2:49 pm

(3) Sean says:

so here is the question… If the fish feels pain are you going to stop fishing and eating?
My answer is no I have always eaten what I caught and I always release the ones I’m not going to eat or that are to small. so do I care if that fish feels pain? Is that before or after I filet them?

April 8, 2009 at 3:51 am

(4) Vic says:

From what I’ve seen by research, I am convinced fish feel pain. So do we stop eating fish? That’s an individual answer but there have been suggestions on how to lessen the stress and the pain to the fish. Is it worth a look? Hope so.

April 28, 2009 at 3:42 pm

(5) chad says:

i am pretty sure that fish feel pain, but not the way people do. it seems that the only emotions that fish feel are discomfort, hunger, and happiness (knowing good fortune. pain would classify as a discomfort, so I’d kinda just be a real pain in the butt instead of pain, but still pain. I learned this from science class, so don’t get mad if I’m wrong, because its from school.

August 16, 2009 at 2:33 pm

(6) Megan says:

Larry- that answer is utterly rediculous. They do not have the intellectual sophistication that we do- thus do not respond to pain as we do. Neither do infants. For instance- a baby grabs a hot curling iron with a fist. Screaming in pain but not knowing what to do- he holds on tighter and the iron must be pried from his hand. Severe burns follow. Response to pain is learned- not instinct- even for us. That doesn’t mean pain doesn’t exist.

Also- most scientists/professors agree that fish do, in fact, feel pain.