Fish Are Not Insentient Dullards

Fish Are Not Insentient Dullards

By Ben Goldfarb

Source: nautil

4/26/2023

Credit: Grigorev Mikhail / Shutterstock

The lives of most captive fish are at once boring and bizarre. A zebrafish in a genomics laboratory or an Atlantic salmon in a fish farm generally endures conditions that would be utterly alien to their wild counterparts. The light is blinding, the walls smooth glass or concrete, the floor ungilded by so much as a plant. Even the water lacks the chemical complexity of a river or sea. It’s both a profoundly unnatural existence and, likely, a dull one.

Until recently, those conditions didn’t overly bother too many people. Compared to primates and other lab mammals, fish were perceived as insentient dullards who didn’t require stimulus; as a result, many researchers believed that the logistical challenges of enriching their subjects’ lives outweighed the benefits. But those ways of thinking are being replaced by an appreciation for fishes’ social and cognitive complexity, which raises the question: How do barren environments affect the lives of captive fish? And what might richer ones do for them?

Continue...

News Id		Source	Stamp	country
3326	Female cleaner fish can judge when to cheat without getting caught	newscientist	2021-09-30	ID
3327	How to save an endangered fish? Eat their enemies, say N.S. conservation groups	CBC News	2021-10-01	CA
3328	Grantham couple upset after pet fish of 30 years killed following otter attack	granthamjournal	2021-10-04	UK
3329	San Marcos fish recommended to be declared extinct by U.S. government	kxan	2021-10-04	US
3330	British Teenager Catches Behemoth 96-Pound Wels Catfish	fieldandstream	2021-09-24	UK
3331	Fishing on the L.A. River without a pole	theeastsiderla	2021-09-26	US
3332	The redfish fishery is returning. So is angst about quotas	CBC News	2021-10-16	CA
3333	Less Than 50 Sockeye Salmon Return to Idaho’s Red Fish Lake	newsradio1310	2021-10-11	US
3334	Alaska’s vanishing salmon push Yukon River tribes to brink	opb	2021-10-02	US
3335	Jeremy Wade on the ‘weirdest’ creature he had crossed paths with	entertainment	2021-09-27	US
3336	DEEP officials recall declaration for massive catfish caught in Coventry	FOX61	2021-09-29	US
3337	Hendersonville man catches another monster fish on Old Hickory Lake by accident	Nashville Tennessean	2021-09-19	US
3338	Anglers feared red tide would create a ‘dead zone’ in Tampa Bay.	bradenton	2021-09-24	US
3339	Cornwall fisherman questions 'absurd' tracking system for small boats	bbc	2021-09-19	UK
3340	The White Lady, endemic fish of the Yucatan Peninsula threatened by water pollution	theyucatantimes	2021-09-24	US
3341	No violations at salmon farm where more than 100,000 fish died, state says	bangordailynews	2021-09-27	US
3342	Tasmania’s salmon industry detonates underwater bombs to scare away seals – but at what cost?	theconversation	2021-09-16	AU
3343	Outrage as supertrawler fishing boats return to East and West Sussex coast	sussexlive	2021-09-20	UK
3344	Video shows sea ‘bubbling’ at St Leonards as mackerel force whitebait fish on to beach	hastings observer	2021-09-20	UK
3345	Ipswich ‘underwater highway’ recognised for protecting lungfish in new documentary	ipswichfirst	2021-09-17	AU
3346	Plan would use poison to restore Yellowstone cutthroat trout	wyofile	2021-09-21	US
3347	Fisherman goes deep to catch record fish	usatoday	2021-09-21	US
3348	How Transparent, 'Vampire' Catfish May Travel Unseen Through the Amazon River	gizmodo	2021-09-20	BZ
3349	Troubled Waters	earthobservatory	2021-09-25	US
3350	Ученые проанализировали уровни концентрации плутония в Енисее	RG	2021-09-28	RU

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