Please allow me to respond to Harris Sherline’s Nov. 3 commentary in Noozhawk regarding PETA’s request that the City of Irvine erect a memorial in honor of hundreds of fish who slowly suffocated after the truck carrying them collided with another vehicle.
Fish are intelligent animals who can feel pain, as all animals do. This is no longer in question.
After surveying the scientific literature on fish pain and intelligence, not only did researchers at the University of Guelph in Canada conclude that fish feel pain, they also insisted that their welfare deserves our consideration.
All of God’s creatures deserve protection from abuse, be they cats or catfish, bass or basset hounds. Yet every day, fish are impaled, crushed, suffocated, or cut open and gutted, all while they’re still conscious. Because they have no legal protections from cruelty, fish are abused in ways that would warrant felony cruelty-to-animals charges if dogs or cats were the victims.
The best way for people to keep fish from suffering is to stop eating them. But erecting a memorial that reminds the drivers who haul them to be careful with the lives that they hold in their hands seems like the least that we can do.
Paula Moore
The PETA Foundation
Norfolk, Va.