# PETA says : Don't call them fish ! Call them sea kittens ! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 12, 2009, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998 "2009-01-12T22:54:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Jodi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7feea3/32.png) [@Jodi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jodi)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/41 "2009-01-13T02:26:50Z")
Maybe it speaks to the sicker part of my personality but . . . I _want_ to eat sea kitten! “Fish” is boring but sea kitten – exotic. I think I’ll have some wild Alaska sea kitten with teriyaki glaze for dinner tomorrow night. Thanks, PETA! You may be nuttier than a pecan pie, but you do know your good eatin’. ---
**Author:** ![Charger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df788c/32.png) [@Charger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charger)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/42 "2009-01-13T02:30:18Z")
In a related story, pigeons are now called “sky carp.” ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/43 "2009-01-13T02:30:35Z")
> [@rocking\_chair](#): > > is this because of chicken of the sea? Oh, I don’t know, _“Chicken of the Sea Kittens”_ has a nice ring to it. Could be a band name! ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/44 "2009-01-13T02:31:31Z")
Did anyone read the “Sea Kitten Stories” yet? What a hoot. > [@](#): > > Unfortunately, years of watching her friends and family being hooked through the mouth…have driven her mad with grief. Bitter and insane, she spends her days plotting her revenge against the Land Kittens who live such happy lives in comfortable homes, free from the terror of being eaten. ---
**Author:** ![Suburban\_Plankton](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/suburban_plankton/32/219_2.png) [@Suburban\_Plankton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Suburban_Plankton)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/45 "2009-01-13T02:40:21Z")
I showed the link to \*\*Rhiannon8404 \*\*and she asked, “Can we just eat the ones that God kills when people masturbate?” I pointed out that God only kills _sea_-kittens when people masturbate in the shower (or the bathtub)…but that will still probably keep us all well fed, won’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/46 "2009-01-13T03:07:53Z")
What would PETA be like if it weren’t ridiculous? Surely they didn’t start out that way. With their membership and organization, if they concentrated on things that actually made sense to most people, they might make some progress. (Things like making “factory farms” less hellish, or preventing used-up racehorses from being sold to be hung up by their hind feet and bled out in Mexican slaughterhouses.) ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/47 "2009-01-13T03:18:55Z")
> [@Charger](#): > > In a related story, pigeons are now called “sky carp.” But carp is a fish, so technically wouldn’t they be “sky sea kittens?” ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/48 "2009-01-13T03:25:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > PETA is an animal rights group the way that the insane preacher ranting at college students on your local campus quad is a Christian. Yeah, that’s superficially the ideology they espouse, but PETA and the preachers (band name!) are really attention whores. I’d wager that PETA is mentioned on this message board more than every other nonprofit combined. > > View them as animal rights advocates, and their record is pretty spotty (they’ve had some significant successes, and an assload of embarrassing failures). View them as attention whores, and they’re fucking genius at their work. > > Daniel I stand corrected. PETA is not an animal rights group (and sure as hell not an animal _welfare_ group). It’s a vegan pressure group that’s convinced too many that it really is just people who are for the ethical treatment of animals. ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/49 "2009-01-13T04:06:51Z")
Are they serious? “Tony the Trout is the smartest Sea Kitten in his school . . . When Tony is caught and fed to a precocious young child who, having eaten one mercury-filled sea kitten too many, falls to the bottom of his class, the irony is not lost on him.” ---
**Author:** ![Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Tapioca\_Dextrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tapioca_Dextrin)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/50 "2009-01-13T04:12:17Z")
> [@Charger](#): > > In a related story, pigeons are now called “sky carp.” I think you accidentally transposed the r and the a there. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/51 "2009-01-13T04:18:45Z")
> [@Koxinga](#): > > Are they serious? They are attention whores. This is a satirical campaign with some humor value in it (the stories are kinda funny, and the idea is ridiculous enough to be funny). It fails on two fronts: 1. Most people are so convinced that eating fish != eating kittens that the satire will fail to move virtually everyone who hears of it; and 2. Many people who eat fish but not mammals do so for sound philosophical/ethical reasons, based on observable behavioral differences between normal fish and mammals. It succeeds on one front: 1. It gets people talking about PETA, gets them in the news, makes PETA feel relevant and awesome to themselves. Just like Reverend Birdsong feels relevant and awesome to himself when he calls female pants-wearing college students whores. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/52 "2009-01-13T04:28:18Z")
> [@](#): > > Wasn’t it people from PETA who got into trouble recently for a hate campaign against a group of scientists - including spreading rumours that some of them were pedophiles? To which the scientists responded, _“We’re not pedophiles - we just like having sex with what we call ‘school-age adults’.”_ ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/53 "2009-01-13T04:48:12Z")
But, but… how about fish that live in lakes, rivers and other non oceanic water bodies? We still call them Sea Kittens? :dubious: And just in cue too, right when I’m learning reef fish identification they throw my newly acquired skills in the ditch. Me-Oh, that’s a red liped triggerfish. PETA-No, it’s a sea kitten. -Look a Clark’s Anemone fish! -You mean the sea kitten? -A juvenile blue ringed angelfish over there. -Sea kitten… -Oh, look at that, a hungry, angry tiger shark! -Pfft, just another sea ki… **Soaks PETA guy in chum and punts him/her overboard** -Go play with the sea kitten. ---
**Author:** ![Vox\_Imperatoris](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Vox\_Imperatoris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vox_Imperatoris)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/54 "2009-01-13T04:55:37Z")
I would eat kittens if I thought they would taste good and were commonly available. Just sayin’. Valete, Vox Imperatoris ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/55 "2009-01-13T04:59:23Z")
> [@Rysto](#): > > At another forum I visit, it was proposed that cats should be renamed to “land fish”. That would make lions “land sharks”, sea lions “sea land sharks” and catfish “land fish sea kittens”. Reminds me of a particular exchange in that one Futurama episode: “They have sea land sharks on land?” “Yep. They’re called land sea land sharks. I tame them.” ---
**Author:** ![LeeshaJoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e8cbc/32.png) [@LeeshaJoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LeeshaJoy)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/56 "2009-01-13T05:25:58Z")
> [@Max\_the\_Immortal](#): > > Reminds me of a particular exchange in that one Futurama episode: > “They have sea land sharks on land?” > “Yep. They’re called land sea land sharks. I tame them.” [fangirl nitpick mode] It’s 'land sea _lions.’_ [/fangirl nitpick mode] ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/57 "2009-01-13T05:37:28Z")
Mommy, I don’t wanna let kitty sleep in the bed with me anymore. He’s cold an’ dead an’ stinky! ---
**Author:** ![kitemaker\_chuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/a88e4f/32.png) [@kitemaker\_chuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kitemaker_chuck)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 5:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/58 "2009-01-13T05:47:43Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > To which the scientists responded, _“We’re not pedophiles - we just like having sex with what we call ‘school-age adults’.”_ This sounds serious!! Somebody call a carp!!! ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Bruin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/e274bd/32.png) [@Queen\_Bruin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Bruin)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/59 "2009-01-13T06:24:46Z")
I had kittens for dinner. Damn I feel like such a badass. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2009, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998/60 "2009-01-13T11:10:33Z")
> [@](#): > > originally posted by **devil’s knew:** > Aw, fuck em all … just call them buckeyes. “Give a man a buckeye and he eats for a day. Teach a man to buckeye, and he eats for a lifetime.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/peta-says-dont-call-them-fish-call-them-sea-kittens/480998.md?page=4)