"Toni" wrote in message rthlink.net...
"Chuck Gadd" wrote in message
...

So you think that wild caught fish are automatically mistreated?



Knowing full well that you'll probably come back with 100 reasons I'm wrong
g-
I believe that to interfere to the extent of physically removing a creature
from its natural environment is the ultimate abuse. The percentage that die
is unacceptable- how big is that pile of dead Cardinal Tetras in the sky?
Plus the trauma of being yanked from your home and being slapped into a
plastic bag?
Simply so they can live in a box in your home?
As humans can we really *be* that presumptuous?

I believe it is simply not our right to intrude on their lives.
I also don't believe in zoos, captive animals, or a hundred other abuses our
present society condones.
I believe that "dominion over the animals" is not a license to redetermine
their fate, but a gentle edict to respect their right to exist as equal to
our own.

I believe that "animal viewing" exhibitions may have started innocently
enough as a way for common folk to see up close and personal all the
creatures that the explorers wrote home about, but that time is now past.
The concept went bad pretty early on IMO- when the first animal died.
We have the Discovery Channel now for viewing the wonders of the wild
kingdom.

I also might need to mention that I have worked in the pet
shop/circus/companion animal field for over 30 years and have seen more than
my share of animals faring badly at the hand of man.


I sort of hope this is a troll. We're all guilty of the occasional
oversimplification but the view that aquarium (or any) fish has "their
right to exist as equal to our own" is more than a tad extreme as is
"it is simply not our right to intrude on their lives." (we'll assume
you're vegan, but how do you justify intruding on the life of
vegetables? Do the screams of butternut squash keep you up at night?)
I'm all for treating our finned charges humanely and maintaining their
tank environments respectfully because we, generally, have assumed
that burden in making the decision to keep fish. But I'm also pretty
comfortable with our position as a species on top of the food chain.
Remember folks: we aren't intruding on some grand environmental
equation that would be harmonious and static but for our bumbling;
we're part of the equation and it is dynamic and non-linear--we and
our bumbling are part of the grand equation(or at least this part of
it). Species going extinct for a variety of reasons is part of
evolution; it may not be wise of us to blithely obliterate some
species--but it is rather difficult to tell a subsistance farmer in
South America not to feed his kids because we (from the comfort of our
air conditioned keyboard cubes) need to perpetuate the habitat of a
micro shrew that may or may not exist elsewhere and likely has very
little impact on our survival as a species. There are lots of folks
to blame for the overly romanticized view of nature implied here, from
Rosseau to Disney. Rachael Carson's alarmist style has also muddied
the discourse.

Think beyond the greenpeace bumper stickers.
Enjoy your grilled salmon.