I’ve been fishing since I was a kid. My dad once told me that fish don’t get hurt from the hook (except of cource, if they swallow it).
Do fish have less nerves in their mouth than humans or is fishing less humane than I thought?
Your father is wrong. The fish’s mouth is probably one of the more sensitive parts of it’s body in that it uses it like a pair of arms and fingers to pick things up, gauge an objects texture and “feel” determine if it’s edible or nest building material etc. etc. This requires a fair number of nerve endings to accomplish. If a fish is “hooked” in the mouth it’s going to feel a tremendous amount of “pain”.
Whether fish “pain” information is analogous to human “pain” information I have no idea.
Well, theoretically, since the fish has a less developed backbone, I would think the sensation of pain is certainly different then our own, but I don’t know that it is any more or less than us. I don’t know how one would even rate pain levels.
My offhand guess would be that they don’t have as developed a nervous system with as many overall noci-receptors, and therefore, don’t ‘feel’ as much pain as we do. Then again, a lot of that is based on the fact that they don’t scream wildly when they get violently injured the way we do.
I’d think that the fish should have some equivalent of pain, to warn it of hostile environment. I do not have any idea wheter it feels as our pain or as “bitter” taste, for instance. I also do not know if these “warning” receptors are located in the mouth. Perhaps, Astro knows, he was a fish in his other life…even weaved nests.
Here’s a clue for you peace.
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/2/0,5716,56722+1+55336,00.html?query=fish%20nesting
“The nests of fishes vary from shallow depressions scooped in sand or gravel (used by many groups) to enclosed structures constructed of plant materials, such as those constructed by male sticklebacks, which use a secretion produced by the kidneys as a binding material.”
I saw a show a few years ago that featured a vet who was doing surgery on a fish. (It was a very valuable Koi from Japan). It was apparently experimental work, and he had no idea what to expect in the way of anesthethia needs. He tried using some but ultimately found no difference in the way the fish reacted to being operated on with or without anesthesia, which was that they flopped around a bit when taken out of the water, but didn’t seem to react specifically to being cut.
This suggests to me two possible conclusions:
- Fish don’t feel pain
- Fish feel pain, but we don’t know how to tell
Don’t know if this helps, but I thought it was interesting.
I agree, but I don’t have a reference to cite. From what I’ve heard, fish’s mouths do contain nerves for feeling. From my aquarium experience, I know that fish do have the sensory capability to feel…there are countless references about their lateral lines which can feel pressure changes in the water around them. A fish with a parasite attached certainly notices it’s presence (and tries to scrape it off on some nearby rock). It does not seem to be a great leap of logic to think that they can feel pain.
My WAG is that the fish does not appear to feel pain when you unhook it probably because it is more freaked out (and exhausted) by being dragged out of the water.
Another concern that few fisherfolk think about is that the hooking and reeling in of fish causes (1) a puncture wound that is thereafter susceptible to infection, (2) great stress, which decreases a fish’s ability to fight off infection. I don’t know about fish in the wild, but aquarium fish can certainly die from stress and small wounds.
Hey, this may be a good question for Cecil. I didn’t see it answered in the archives.
Very common practice in Japan: Filet and cube a fish alive, then eat him. The fish does not appear to be in serious distress until you put a bit of wassabe in his mouth - then he kicks up a fit…
My (non expert) conclusion: No pain receptors in the sides, but definitely some in the mouth…
Of course they feel pain; no animal would survive without a sense of pain. The only reason why a fish doesn’t scream is because, like many other animals, it doesn’t have lungs to force out air!
-Eelkos
The examples given above, purporting to prove that fish don’t feel pain, are ridiculous. A fish doesn’t feel pain because there’s no discernible difference in its flopping when you take it out of the water and stick a knife in it, and when you just take it out of the water?
[ul]“People don’t feel pain, cuz I threw one guy in a fire, and then I threw another guy in a fire and shot him in the kneecap. They both flopped around about the same.”[/ul]They were both out of the water! What does that prove?
In my personal experience (manager of a large pet shop’s fish room for 6 years, my own aquarium maintenance business for 8 years), fish are capable of reacting aversely to phsyical stimuli, and are well able to distinguish casual contact from injurious contact.
Whether you want to call it “pain” or not is a question of semantics.
And FWIW, there are fish that make sounds, even vocalizations, without the aid of lungs.
Thanks for the responses guys. My Brown-spotted Catfish does indeed make a ‘Honking’ noise when removed from the water in my aquarium, so some fish do vocalize their displeasures. I’ve sent a note off to Cecil… who knows, maybe he’ll give it a go. - JC
Yeah, IMO they feel pain. At least in their mouths.
When I hook a fish, and then start to remove the hook, the fish becomes noticeably more agitated. Just taking the fish out of the water agitates them, but removal of the hook can send them into a frenzy of motion.
I’ve always said that it would be a great evolutionary leap forward for fish if they could learn to scream. Who would have the heart to go fishing if the fish they caught was crying and moaning and wailing?
I hope they didn’t feel too much pain…
Back in the day, I used to torture catfish. I mean really torture them. Fishing always made me bored really fast, so to pass the time I would torture the catfish everyone else caught. (Since you can’t eat the channel cats)
I would club them over the head; remove their brains, eyes, or other organs; (there were some neat pearl type thingies in their eyes- what were those all about?)
I used to seperate the tails from some and attach them to the heads of others- making fish with two heads or fish with two tails; I would burry them alive in the sand and check on them periodicaly; shove sand into their mouths and gills; bash them up against rocks…
Wow, I cannot believe my father did not discourage such behaviour. It is amazing I did not turn out psychotic… or did I?
Has anyone ever exposed a fish to painful stimuli and then monitored the fishes heartbeat/respiration/adrenalin?
fromPhobos
You may be surprised, pleasantly I hope, that at most fishing ponds in the UK where the fish are not intended to be consumed, such as carp ponds, the owners usually insist that the sportsmen dress the fish’s injuries, from the hook or from bashing themselves in the fight, with antiseptic agents, one popular is gentian violet as it is easily seen.
Most coarse fishing facility owners will not allow the use of barbed hooks either.
Self-respecting anglers don’t use barbed hooks anyway, not in the UK.
I think I saw this in the In-Fisherman, years ago. Wish I could provide a better cite.
They pointed out a few interesting things. First, most sport fish are carnivores that feed on other critters. That’s why you can trick 'em into going for lures. (I’m a smallmouth bass freak, so I’ll stick specifically to them.)
Second, most prey have defenses. Sunfish have dorsal spines; crawdads have claws; baby catfish, well, they don’t call them Mad Toms for nothing. If it’s waterborne prey, chances are it’s a pinching or puncturing defense.
So, the In-Fisherman (I think) theorizes that bass, at least, aren’t terribly disturbed by the puncture of a fishhook, because if they were they would be far more selective in what they eat. What fish do react to adversely is the highly unnatural pulling that they experience when the hook is set. This triggers the fight/flight response, at which smallies are quite adept.
Once caught and released, a bass usually goes dormant for a day or so (which might not be good), but here is some evidence that smallmouth can get used to being caught, too. For awhile, I fished enough in the same place to be able to recognize individual bass. I caught several twice in one day, and one three times in an afternoon (I liked that guy).
Incidentally, I’ve caught several smallmouth sporting hooks in their mouths. This tells me that whatever discomfort they may be experiencing by having a hook in the mouth doesn’t prevent them from feeding. Even though hooks will rust away in a fish’s mouth fairly quickly, I always made certain to remove any extras that I found.
man, I gotta stop eating lunch while reading the SDMB :eek:
You had better set up a catfish sanctuary to atone for your fish-sins. 
That’s not even the gross part. The gross part would be where I step on them or squeeze them until all their guts come out the butt. Sometimes I would find barely digested shrimp in the intestines. I would throw the shrimp back in the bait bucket. This always made me wonder what the other live shrimp thought when they saw poor partially digested Frank get tossed back in. That would scare the crap out of me if I was a shrimp.
BTW, did you know that a fish hook and line don’t make a bad suture. Also, if you cut the head off a catfish and attach the body to a living catfish (making a two tailed fish), the live fish doesn’t swim very well after that. But amazingly, the can still swim some. Those fish can survive some tremendous amount of pain …if they feel it.
Bear_Neno is a scary guy–he is licensed to carry a gun, he drives 100+mph on his way to work and now we know that he tortures fish. Drive carefully in Tampa and don’t transport your child’s new goldfish in your car is my advice. Don’t let him see you leaving a sea food joint either–he might decide to check you out for partially digested shrimp.
lissener:
Well, I didn’t claim my example to be a proof, so I won’t defend it however, why do you suppose that the fish start flopping violently when the get a tiny amount of wassabe (horse radish) in their mouths, but barely seem to notice as the filet knife slices through their sides? Also, again not offered as proof, but our Japaneese ‘cook’ (and I use that term loosely) claimed that the fish feel no pain in their sides… of course, perhaps he was just trying to put us queasy Americans at ease about eating a live fish…