This isn't a screed against eating fish or meat; I eat both. There are a lot of unethical practices in these industries that I'd like to see greatly improved, but putting a few individuals in an enclosure where there is at least some research and educational value seems like not even a rounding error on the state of animal welfare.
It's even incredibly rare for humans - we're currently in an age of plenty and abundance, with more people living better lives than at any other point in the history of our species.
Overfishing and the geopolitical nature of enforcement and exploitation aren't something we can affect at an individual level, but these aquarium staff are doing a good thing, making a pretty good life for a sunfish. An actual companion would be better, but as long as the cutouts are triggering relief for whatever social needs being affected, that's a good deal for the sunfish.
Essentially, having the animal be free before we catch and immediately and hopefully quickly kill it for food is fine. Keeping it in a zoo where it's not suffering is fine.
Keeping it in poor conditions before we kill and eat it is not fine. Keeping it in poor conditions in a zoo is not fine.
This story is interesting in that it gives insight into the mental state of these zoo animals, something that is often hard for the public to see and understand. It should make you pause to consider if we're really keeping these animals in humane conditions, given that apparently even fish have possibly more complex internal mental states than we assume.
This has become my reflexive internal response when I hear complaining about small-beer animal cruelty. Why are we so quick to empathize with this sunfish, and so slow to do it for creatures whose products most of us eat every single day? The horror show of factory farming creates many orders of magnitude more suffering than all these little anecdotes put together.
Zoos are cruel? Hypocrisy. Circuses are cruel? Hypocrisy. Bullfighting is cruel? Hypocrisy. Euthanizing stray dogs is cruel? Hypocrisy. Using animals in a film shoot is cruel? Hypocrisy. Keeping a single guinea pig is cruel? Hypocrisy (but against the law in Germany). And so on.
People in developed countries have become very good at dealing with cognitive dissonance.
Additionally, most of us are taught "hurting things is bad" as children and many adults have a hard time reconciling that we have to intentionally hurt at least some living things to live, hurt an even greater amount of living things to flourish, and at a certain point decreasing suffering in one dimension increases it in another.
For those who haven't developed a more mature framework, they tend to revert to the childhood "hurting things is bad" lesson, and an alternative framework based on nuance and context around suffering is too emotionally painful for them to accept, even if they can intellectually admit to the logic.
On behalf of the more intellectual crowd, I'm obliged to devastatingly elucidate that we're (quite singularly) more intrinsically adept at forcefully projecting ex post facto rationalizations upon our--invariably and universally--emotional decision-making processes whilst obfuscating the same under an avalanche of loquacious hifalutinisms.
We asked her about it afterwards, turns out they just like being petted :). Eventually got to try it out ourselves on another dive, fish can be really friendly.
It's a complicated multi-threaded discussion. I saw a vid recently from (I assume the UK) that people were protesting on the meat-alley of a super market. So those people are cool when the super market sells cigarettes, sugary drinks that cause diabetes to kids, 'chocolates' with 50% sugar, alcohol that ruins millions of lives around the world, etc. But steak.. that is their problem. Oh the hypocrisy.
Besides that, they have an important educational component that surely contributes politically for conservation efforts.
A world with no zoos and less appreciation and consideration for nature as well as the long term necessity of caring for it?
I’m wondering about creating more nature parks instead of zoos. Of course not as accessible for people in cities, but could be a much better compromise.
In general, we should avoid putting animals in small cages as much as possible.
Here he is mounting and having a go at Mark Carwardine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9T1vfsHYiKY
"You are being shagged by a rare parrot!"
I knew someone who got a bird at a pet store. The bird's favorite caretaker looked like a younger version of my friend. So the bird was intrigued. When she surrendered the bird about five years later, the girlfriend of the man running the sanctuary also had the same hair color and skin tone. So again the bird was eager to check out the new person. Most other people could fuck right off.
I understand the conservation aspect of aquariums and all the good things that come out of it (research, etc) but it still makes me a bit sad when I read things like this.
Except in the direst of circumstances, your connection with that experience of seeing an African Elephant is a much more potent predictor for survival of the species than the benefit of having the elephant here where poaching is nonexistent but gene inheritance is complicated and limited. The star power of the animals triggers positive steps and slows or stops negative ones.
There's a conservation group I was involved with who thought they were going to save the world with a half dozen acres of land. The longer I knew them the more I realized that some of them didn't mean it figuratively. I love them but that's deranged. Meanwhile I treated it the way I think of zoos. That first hand experience re-establishing a human connection with Nature. The first or second domino in a long series of dominoes.
And I think they serve an important and not-irreplaceable purpose - exposure. They help show ordinary people, many of whom live in cities with no exposure to real nature, just what out there is worth protecting. I think it helps build public support for things like reducing waste, better fishing and hunting practices, the importance of parks and preserves, wildlife crossings, etc.
Sure, you can see them on your phone. But the result is completely different than seeing them with your own eyes.
There was a poem written about the phenomenon:
Big fleas have little fleas
upon their backs to bite 'em
And little fleas have lesser fleas
and so ad infinitum
