virginiadiver69
New member
Don't you just love the navel gazing Steve? :lol:
Ethics of keeping captive reef-dwelling animals - is there a more rigorous analysis?
- Thread starter mrwilson
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Don't you just love the navel gazing Steve? :lol:
cortez marine
In Memoriam
Huh?
"splain, en Ingrish por favor."
esteban
"splain, en Ingrish por favor."
esteban
This thread is interesting in that most of the responses are answers or purported answers to a whole different set of questions than the one actually raised here. It's like I've stumbled onto a whole separate debate - actually, several such debates - and many folks have simply chosen to express their views on those other, fully separate topic. (Which is certainly fine - hey, I'm not the thread police). For instance, cortez marine is interested in talking about local collectors, and wild-caught versus captive propagated and issues of that kind. Dewey58 talks about his or her reasons for loving his reef tank. Airinhere expresses the view that in many ways reef tanks are further indications of typical Western-style conspicuous consumption. Mcintosh defends reef keepers by noting that coral mining and the like has a far more deleterious impact. And virginiadiver69 wants to poke a bit of fun at us by characterizing the discussion pejoratively as "navel-gazing" (although I note that name-calling rarely advances the ball much in discussions, in my experience.)
The more I think about the issue I originally raised, the more I am coming around to what I believe is Thales' and perhaps Kep's view - that it is fully irrational, an instance of cognitive dissonance, to care not one whit for the living (and dying) conditions of say, a farm-raised salmon, while simultaneously chiding someone on these message boards for conditions I have deemed to be inhumane. If that's right, then keeping a tang in a 55 is merely unwise; it is not unethical in the least. (Unless, of course, keeping salmon in tight quarters or the like is also unethical.)
The more I think about the issue I originally raised, the more I am coming around to what I believe is Thales' and perhaps Kep's view - that it is fully irrational, an instance of cognitive dissonance, to care not one whit for the living (and dying) conditions of say, a farm-raised salmon, while simultaneously chiding someone on these message boards for conditions I have deemed to be inhumane. If that's right, then keeping a tang in a 55 is merely unwise; it is not unethical in the least. (Unless, of course, keeping salmon in tight quarters or the like is also unethical.)
cortez marine
In Memoriam
We dont take fishes from the wild. Fisherman do and they do not play Hamlet with their vocations.
They tend to know exactly why they do it. To care for and feed their families.
We on the other hand have the luxury to engage in whimsy and wax poetic about our impulses and motivations.
They have good reasons to take fish from the sea and thank God we have our own reasons to support them.
Its not to take fish or not to take fish........ but how you take em.
If anyone wants to know if they are good peOple or not, find out if you support cyanide fishing or not.
Buy only netcaught fishes and pull the plug on most Philippine and Indonesian suppliers until or unless they clean it up.
Buy wild netcaught fishes and relieve yourself of guilt. Stop subsidizing the trade in coral killing poisoned fishes. Thats where the real problem is.
Steve
They tend to know exactly why they do it. To care for and feed their families.
We on the other hand have the luxury to engage in whimsy and wax poetic about our impulses and motivations.
They have good reasons to take fish from the sea and thank God we have our own reasons to support them.
Its not to take fish or not to take fish........ but how you take em.
If anyone wants to know if they are good peOple or not, find out if you support cyanide fishing or not.
Buy only netcaught fishes and pull the plug on most Philippine and Indonesian suppliers until or unless they clean it up.
Buy wild netcaught fishes and relieve yourself of guilt. Stop subsidizing the trade in coral killing poisoned fishes. Thats where the real problem is.
Steve
Thales
Active member
To address that last stuff, we'll first have to define what we mean by ethical. I think ethics are defined by groups and are relative, so for the reefing community, it may be right to say mistreatment (define that too!
) of animals is unethical, but by no means can that be taken to be something absolute. Mostly, people seem to think that the mistreatment of animals they 'care' about is unethical, but if they either don't care about those animals, or don't directly see the mistreatment, the ethicalness of the mistreatment never even enters their minds or is justified by cognitive dissonance. Kill pests any way possible, but pets must be saved at any expense.
There is an argument that once taken into our care, we are ethically responsible for an animal's health, but it seems to me that that same thought should be applied to the way or society treats or raises its food animals, not just to pets. After all, as a group, we have taken those animals into our care until we eat them.
There seems to be another differentiation between 'farmed' animals and wild animals. It seems to be thought that we are more bound to care for wild animals than farmed animals, because the wild animal was removed from its habitat while the farmed animal is for our 'use'. Seems like rationalization to me, and the way animals for our use are treated seems to say a lot about our ethical leanings.
Practically, I am generally unable to see a difference between food fish and aquarium fish, and think we should be providing the best husbandry for both kinds of animals.
cortez marine
In Memoriam
Hobbyists have always had the ability to know if they wanted.
THEY ALL KNOW WHERE THEY GET THEIR FISHES.
All dealers know where they get their fishes.
All importers know where they get their fishes.
So put it all together and somehow nothing is known...nothing can be done?
How is that?
Thanks to he internet, everyone can know where fishes come from now and istead of endless hours online comparing prices, people could learn a bit more about zoogeography.
Not wanting to know allows the plausible deniability that so many seek.
Knowledge implies more responsibility could be practiced.
Steve
THEY ALL KNOW WHERE THEY GET THEIR FISHES.
All dealers know where they get their fishes.
All importers know where they get their fishes.
So put it all together and somehow nothing is known...nothing can be done?
How is that?
Thanks to he internet, everyone can know where fishes come from now and istead of endless hours online comparing prices, people could learn a bit more about zoogeography.
Not wanting to know allows the plausible deniability that so many seek.
Knowledge implies more responsibility could be practiced.
Steve
Thales, thanks for your post. I also generally agree with your conclusion that there should be no difference in how we treat farmed versus non-farmed animals. Why should there be a difference?
You note: "Mostly, people seem to think that the mistreatment of animals they 'care' about is unethical, but if they either don't care about those animals, or don't directly see the mistreatment, the ethicalness of the mistreatment never even enters their minds or is justified by cognitive dissonance. Kill pests any way possible, but pets must be saved at any expense." I presume this is simply a description of the state of affairs, rather than any sort of normative or prescriptive statement. Certainly it's right as such a description. But of course, that people actually feel that way for those reasons tells us little, and answers nothing. This is just the sort of irrationality I'm hoping to avoid.
However, I think that whether an animal is worthy of any consideration whatsoever in terms of how we treat it, it must meet some sort of threshold in terms of its complexity - or better, their sentience. I think, for instance, that if there are no sustainability concerns, plants merit no consideration in terms of their treatment by us, nor do very simple animals such as amoebas. I think that position simply is not controversial at all. Yet for something like, say, a chimpanzee, our duty of care should be very high. Also I think a pretty non-controversial position. Fish are obviously somewhere on the sentience spectrum between chimpanzees and amoebas. As I've mentioned in another post, without a self, with a someone who is doing the experiencing (that is, who experiencing the treatment we are doling out to it), then it seems to me that poor treatment is far less ethically worrisome. Without a self, then the animal is much more like an object (or a plant, or an amoeba) than a chimpanzee, or a person. So for me, the question is: are fish sentient (or are some, but other not)? When I look my foxface or my copperband in the eye, is there something - some experiencer - looking back at me, in any meaningful way? (I tend to think that the answer to that is no - our fish are certainly capable of learning by conditioning, but that's a long way from self-awareness, from sentience.) And given most of our views (including mine) about other types of morally-indistinguishable fish we eat - which is that most of us apparently have no qualms about treating such fish any old way - then I am coming around to the view that any ethical disapproval regarding treatment of aquarium fish may be misplaced.
(As for your point about ethics being relative, that's a whole 'nother can of worms, and I don't think it needs to be addressed for purposes of this debate (although I might be wrong about that). I will just note that I disgree, at least with respect to the extreme ends of the spectrum. E.g., hacking a million Tutsis to death with machetes not only was wrong for the Hutus in '94, but similar genocide would be wrong in all places and times; throwing oneself onto a grenade to save one's comrades was not only heroic for Michael Monsoor in Iraq in September 2006, but would be heroic in all times and places.)
You note: "Mostly, people seem to think that the mistreatment of animals they 'care' about is unethical, but if they either don't care about those animals, or don't directly see the mistreatment, the ethicalness of the mistreatment never even enters their minds or is justified by cognitive dissonance. Kill pests any way possible, but pets must be saved at any expense." I presume this is simply a description of the state of affairs, rather than any sort of normative or prescriptive statement. Certainly it's right as such a description. But of course, that people actually feel that way for those reasons tells us little, and answers nothing. This is just the sort of irrationality I'm hoping to avoid.
However, I think that whether an animal is worthy of any consideration whatsoever in terms of how we treat it, it must meet some sort of threshold in terms of its complexity - or better, their sentience. I think, for instance, that if there are no sustainability concerns, plants merit no consideration in terms of their treatment by us, nor do very simple animals such as amoebas. I think that position simply is not controversial at all. Yet for something like, say, a chimpanzee, our duty of care should be very high. Also I think a pretty non-controversial position. Fish are obviously somewhere on the sentience spectrum between chimpanzees and amoebas. As I've mentioned in another post, without a self, with a someone who is doing the experiencing (that is, who experiencing the treatment we are doling out to it), then it seems to me that poor treatment is far less ethically worrisome. Without a self, then the animal is much more like an object (or a plant, or an amoeba) than a chimpanzee, or a person. So for me, the question is: are fish sentient (or are some, but other not)? When I look my foxface or my copperband in the eye, is there something - some experiencer - looking back at me, in any meaningful way? (I tend to think that the answer to that is no - our fish are certainly capable of learning by conditioning, but that's a long way from self-awareness, from sentience.) And given most of our views (including mine) about other types of morally-indistinguishable fish we eat - which is that most of us apparently have no qualms about treating such fish any old way - then I am coming around to the view that any ethical disapproval regarding treatment of aquarium fish may be misplaced.
(As for your point about ethics being relative, that's a whole 'nother can of worms, and I don't think it needs to be addressed for purposes of this debate (although I might be wrong about that). I will just note that I disgree, at least with respect to the extreme ends of the spectrum. E.g., hacking a million Tutsis to death with machetes not only was wrong for the Hutus in '94, but similar genocide would be wrong in all places and times; throwing oneself onto a grenade to save one's comrades was not only heroic for Michael Monsoor in Iraq in September 2006, but would be heroic in all times and places.)
cortez marine
In Memoriam
The less that is known and wanted to be known, the more difficult it will be to get the simple answer.
One could stay clean easily by supporting alternative countries.
Knowing nothing of the tropical countries of the world, like Vanuatu, Solomons, Tonga , Mashalls, Tahiti, Australia, Hawaii, etc. the harder it would be to ever understand anything.
The cleanest fish in Indonesia are the Les...Bali fish still.
That supply has been much maligned by posters on the internet for not being perfect.
Such criticisms were never leveled at the normal traders in cyanide fishes. You know them, They are the nice guys who bring you the best coral.
The Philippines hasnt got much as clean as Les that that are seperated.
They haven`t solved it yet...
Having done so little to help, few people have the right to expect the solutions delivered for them.
This is all still a struggle and an unfinished story.
Steve
One could stay clean easily by supporting alternative countries.
Knowing nothing of the tropical countries of the world, like Vanuatu, Solomons, Tonga , Mashalls, Tahiti, Australia, Hawaii, etc. the harder it would be to ever understand anything.
The cleanest fish in Indonesia are the Les...Bali fish still.
That supply has been much maligned by posters on the internet for not being perfect.
Such criticisms were never leveled at the normal traders in cyanide fishes. You know them, They are the nice guys who bring you the best coral.
The Philippines hasnt got much as clean as Les that that are seperated.
They haven`t solved it yet...
Having done so little to help, few people have the right to expect the solutions delivered for them.
This is all still a struggle and an unfinished story.
Steve
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12423672#post12423672 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Thales
That great sentiment - any new thoughts on how the hobbyist can actually, practically, do any of those things?
PS - its got nothing to do with being good people or guilt.
Please go back to reefs.org. You are a big wheel there.
Thales
Active member
I do still think that for a really meaningful discussion, we'll need to define terms - 'specially 'ethical'.
I agree that there seems to be some kind of 'complexity' scale with which we judge how we treat different animals. In the US, I think that scale is dependent on our relationship and generally proximity to the animals. Most have no problem with the way food fish or animals are kept because its hidden, and we are conditioned to lightly think that since food is necessary how that food is treated becomes secondary, if thought about at all, to getting the food. If you get people to actually pay attention to the way food animals are kept, if you can get people to really see how these animals are treated, they generally get upset. I think people have a huge reaction to how fish in aquaria are treated because aquarium fish are in front of them every day.
As you say, most people agree that chimps would be at the top of the scale, however, most people don't really care how they are treated unless they are forced to see how they are treated. What happens to 'entertainment' chimps after they get too strong to work is often horrible, but since its out of sight, its out of mind regardless of any 'ethical' position. Some think that the chain of custody in this hobby treats animals so badly that they can no longer justify supporting the hobby at all. Most people turn a blind eye to how badly animals are treated in the chain of custody because cognitive dissonance allows price to trump personal ethics. Some ignore issues in the COC, but are vocal regarding the way people keep animals in their homes for the same reason (although there is an argument for people trying to have influence where they can).
Since we agree there is some kind of scale, an interesting question becomes how we decide where animals stack up. This seems like something people have to decide for themselves since there is no objective way to determine where what goes on the scale. It seems some people use the idea of ethics as a substitute for 'objective', and discussions like tangs in small tank become 'you're wrong' face offs rather than discussions. I don't think ethics are absolute or objective, so for me, people generally aren't 'wrong', we just disagree, and I am interested in understanding how they have arrived at their current positions.
Is ethical disapproval regarding treatment of aquarium fish misplaced? Hard to tell, especially if you think ethics are relative or determined by groups. I think at the very least, many times people are inconsistent, and that ethical disapproval makes people combative rather than open to letting their minds and opinions change.
Fun discussion so far - thanks!
Mental1
New member
It is impossible to get agreement on what animal should be protected or not.The bottom line is that all life is precious -- anything else is simply arrogance.
Steve -- it seems to me that the only way to really ban cyanide use is to hit them in the pocket. I assume that fish can be tested for the presence of cyanide. I think legislation is required that specifies size and condition requirements for all species. A conservation tax is levied to pay for enforcement. All retailers will be visited by the Ornamental Fish Police ( a unit of the ASPCA) and fish will be randomly tested for the presence of cyanide and assessed for species requirements. The importer will have a 3 strike policy, first warned, second fined and third banned for a year. Nothing else will have an impact. Organization is required,
Steve -- it seems to me that the only way to really ban cyanide use is to hit them in the pocket. I assume that fish can be tested for the presence of cyanide. I think legislation is required that specifies size and condition requirements for all species. A conservation tax is levied to pay for enforcement. All retailers will be visited by the Ornamental Fish Police ( a unit of the ASPCA) and fish will be randomly tested for the presence of cyanide and assessed for species requirements. The importer will have a 3 strike policy, first warned, second fined and third banned for a year. Nothing else will have an impact. Organization is required,
gnarlyswine
New member
Cyanide is an issue that really bothers me - Id be willing to pay more to know that a fish has been net caught but how do you really verify that? - Ask the supplier ? I would imagine 90 % will tell you what you want to hear. Id like to see some kind of certification system but how would the inspections be done?
The geographical location idea unfortunately doesnt really work for many species that can be found in multiple locations .
The philippines are mentioned - rightly as a location where cyanide is used frequently so we should try to get imports from Hawaii instead right? Wrong. Other reports I have read say that cyanide use is just as rife there.
On the ethical side I always feel that in the case of tangs a kind of moral superiority is in play - kind of 'My tank is always big enough so I can say that anything smaller is too small' - Its a justification for their own guilt. Really - in the scale of things is the difference between a 6 foot or a 7 foot tank meaningful when compared to the pacific ocean?
As far as the eating and guilt are concerned and the line drawing I find the best analogy is always the cow.
There are vegitarians who wear leather , some people who happily eat a burger or steak , yet consider veal cruel (thats a big one in the UK - veal isnt consumed a lot because of it , Or how about Venison? Rabbit?
In Spain and France many small songbirds are eaten - in the UK they are protected species.
People can always justify what they want to fit into there belief systems as far as animal cruelty is concerned - others will always take some kind of moral high ground.
Anyway to answer - I think? the question as not many others have.
I think the whole tang thing is nonsense, and many other factors like flow and level of care given are equally if not more important - they dont deserve more - or less care than any other captive species. Its true I tend to think of fish (and mobile Inverts) as individuals but tend to think as corals as commodities - funny I hadnt thought in those terms before, and yes if a fish dies - I feel sorry for it , If a coral dies I tend to reflect more on the cost , and be annoyed at failing to provide its habitat adequately.
I dont think about cruelty regarding the food I eat very often - I know some animals are mistreated and I wish it didnt happen - but not enough to get off my behind and do something about it.
BTW I grew up on and for a time owned a farm with 2000 sheep - yes they were free range. When I was a kid we kept orphaned or lambs as semi-pets , hand reared , these were the only ones that I really ever thought of as individuals. When old enough they would eventually join the rest and end up on the supermarket shelves as well but Its not something that I found upsetting.
Right - now im off to get something for tonights dinner - from a puppy mill.
gnarlyswine
New member
The testing for cyanide idea really sounds like a good un to me.
Steve,
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall the only methodologies available for cyanide testing need to be done fairly shortly after the fish is exposed. This means that testing at the country of import is not possible. So it comes down to testing and upholding the laws in the countries of collection, where cyanide fishing is already illegal but still thriving anyway.
I have not yet seen any verifiable reports of cyanide use in Hawaii.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I recall the only methodologies available for cyanide testing need to be done fairly shortly after the fish is exposed. This means that testing at the country of import is not possible. So it comes down to testing and upholding the laws in the countries of collection, where cyanide fishing is already illegal but still thriving anyway.
I have not yet seen any verifiable reports of cyanide use in Hawaii.
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