Fish Welfare

The implications of a feelings-based approach to fish welfare: A reply to Arlinghaus et al.

By F. Huntingford, C. Adams, V. A. Braithwaite, S. Kadri, T. G. Pottinger, P. Sandøe & J. F. Turnbull.

Fish and Fisheries. Wiley-Blackwell. 2007

 

Abstract

The welfare of fish is a topic of increasing debate touching on a number of complex scientific and ethical issues and constructive dialogue between groups with differing approaches to the topic requires mutual understanding from both perspectives. In a recent review aimed at stimulating debate on this topic, Arlinghaus et al. (2007) explore the question of fish welfare in the particular context of recreational angling, by means of a critique of a review of fish welfare in general written by ourselves (Huntingford et al. 2006).

 

We entirely agree with the desirability of debate on this topic and recognise a number of valuable qualities in the commentary by Arlinghaus et al. However, we argue that the critique has some serious flaws. In the first place, by rejecting a feelings-based approaches to welfare, it fails to address the aspect of welfare that is at the heart of much legitimate public concern. Secondly, while advocating an objective, scientific approach to fish welfare, Arlinghaus and co-authors fail to present their own agenda (that recreational angling is morally acceptable) in a transparent way. Thirdly, they seriously misrepresent the position taken in Huntingford et al. (2006) on a number of important issues. In this reply, we address these points and then discuss briefly the areas of agreement and constructive disagreement between the two reviews.  

 

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Review paper: Current issues in fish welfare

By F. A. Huntingford, C. Adams, V.A. Braithwaite, S. Kadri, T.G. Pottinger, P. Sandøe & J. F. Turnbull.

Journal of fish biology. Wiley-Blackwell. 2006

 

Abstract

Human beings may affect the welfare of fish through fisheries, aquaculture and a number of other activities. There is no agreement on just how to weigh the concern for welfare of fish against the human interests involved, but ethical frameworks exist that suggest how this might be approached.

Different definitions of animal welfare focus on an animal’s condition, on its subjective experience of that condition and/or on whether it can lead a natural life. These provide different, legitimate, perspectives, but the approach taken in this paper is to focus on welfare as the absence of suffering.

An unresolved and controversial issue in discussions about animal welfare is whether non-human animals exposed to adverse experiences such as physical injury or confinement experience what humans would call suffering. The neocortex, which in humans is an important part of the neural mechanism that generates the subjective experience of suffering, is lacking in fish and non-mammalian animals, and it has been argued that its absence in fish indicates that fish cannot suffer. However, a strong alternative view is that complex animals with sophisticated behaviour, such as fish, probably have the capacity for suffering, though this may be different in degree and kind from the human experience of this state.

Recent empirical studies support this view and show that painful stimuli are, at least, strongly aversive to fish. Consequently, injury or experience of other harmful conditions is a cause for concern in terms of welfare of individual fish. There is also growing evidence that fish can experience fear-like states and that they avoid situations in which they have experienced adverse conditions.

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