The joy of fish

Is wondering whether a fish can be happy a foolish question? Recent studies seem to erase the boundary between humans and animals, fish included.

 

Today, I invite you to an ethical reflection.

Because the ethical dimension must be taken into account in everything we do, even if in this field we often have more questions than answers.

But being aware of it is important.

 

How can we make our fish happy?

Is it possible?

Can a fish feel happiness?

Is captivity compatible with happiness?

In the past, this question would have seemed out of place (fish happiness).

 

Prejudices die hard

In my youth, I read that the Perfect Cathars (the Cathar "priests") of Languedoc were vegetarians because they must not kill. But they still ate fish, as fish were not considered like other animals, endowed with feeling.

It was long said that if fish could scream, many fishermen would no longer be able to fish.

Recently, scientific studies on animal consciousness, their sensitivity, cognitive abilities, even empathy, have multiplied.

The more studies accumulate, the more the boundary that has always separated humans from animals in our beliefs fades away.

Animals feel affection, this has become an accepted fact. They can be unhappy, and therefore, probably happy.

Those who have a dog, a cat, or a horse have known this for a long time.

Those who have birds, parakeets, parrots, or others as well.

 

Fish, an animal too strange to resemble us?

But fish, because they are more distant from us, still seem different.

They live in water, which is not our environment, they are cold-blooded like reptiles and insects, they often eat their eggs and young… In short, they are very foreign to us.

And, since we find it hard to put ourselves in their place, since their face is little mobile and expressionless, since the talks about them are only technical, numerical, and cold, we do not classify them among the animals that touch our hearts.

 

And yet, all current studies show that, here again, the boundary is a mere prejudice. Goldfish have an effective and astonishing memory (contrary to popular belief), fish recognize human faces (fish sleep), etc. What remains for us to learn, while we are only scratching the surface of the subject?

 

Questioning, doubting, is already good!

Caution, the precautionary principle, seems to me to be to assume that fish are not different from us and other animals in terms of joy, suffering, despair, attachment, and why not, happiness.

Thinking this way raises very troubling questions and therefore requires courage.

Because our fish are in captivity, and that gives us at least a responsibility.

As for me, I have more and more aquariums without fish (the phenomenon of fishless aquariums), populated by a rich and fascinating micro-fauna, living in a vast world for them with complete biological cycles, amid plants that ensure, as in nature, the completeness of the cycle of life.

But I still have some fish in aquariums, outside in summer, and year-round in ponds (ending goldfish indoors).

 

Nature, source of happiness?

Are they captive in ponds? Do they suffer from the impossibility to flee? Because a fish often lives in a limited natural space, a pond or a pool, or even a "big puddle" for some African killifish! The limits of the surface, shores, and bottom are natural to them.

Food is a strong element of pleasure (happiness?) for animals, since it is the most universal way to tame them, to attract them to us.

Is a fish given daphnia happier? More joyful? Less suffering?

That seems to be the case... (can fish safely eat tubifex)

It is obviously impossible to fully answer all these questions, which at least deserve to be asked and to exist in our reflections.

Doing one's best...

We can, at the very least, eliminate bad practices, those we know. The goldfish in its round and ridiculously small bowl must absolutely disappear (the goldfish scandal).

 

Also, tapping on aquarium glass.

What to think of the multicolored fish, by the thousands in shops, survivors of travel and breeding? Or worse, those still too many caught in the wild? Those euphemistically called "wild" in wholesalers' catalogs…

I personally think the best we can offer our fish are conditions close to those of nature, minus the danger and fear of predators.

This is the meaning of the whole poubellarium adventure started in 2004, it is also the approach behind Aquazolla and all my upcoming projects (platy variatus: hardy aquarium fish).

There is no use in feeling guilty.

Let us already be aware that these questions arise.

Let us question ourselves, if possible with the eyes of tomorrow rather than those of yesterday, about what we might discover that we ignore today.

If animals are not subhumans, and fish not sub-animals, but just different, then this must permeate our practices.

And I promise you that when my female guppy placed in the poubellarium in 2004 fled to the bottom of the green water at my approach, I smiled at the situation and probably felt as happy as she did (the key to fish breeding, aquarium: which size to choose, what temperature for an aquarium).