The images in the following program are very sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals.

Personality’s been found in a range of fish and we’ve studied rainbow trout, carp, saber fish and stickleback so there’s wide range of fish that show these personality differences.

Gracious viewers, this is Stop Animal Cruelty on Supreme Master Television. Today, June 8th is World Oceans Day as declared by the United Nations. This year’s theme is: “Our Oceans: Opportunities and Challenges.” In honor of this important occasion, we focus on the widespread, savage treatment of marine life, specifically our bright fish friends who have emotions, are capable of feeling pain and wish to live free and in peace just as any of us do.

Their will to live is certainly obvious through visual observation of their desperate struggle for life when caught. They suffer immensely, not only from suffocation but some are crushed to death after being thrown onto fishing vessels while others are still alive when their throats and bellies are cut open.

According to the United Nations, in 2005, commercial fishing operations took 90 million tons of fish from the oceans. However this huge figure does not even begin to give one an idea of the true scale of death caused by the fishing industry. Sadly some still hold the belief that fish are lower level beings incapable of experiencing feelings. But this is a complete myth and the opposite is true.

While many people have never stopped to think about it, fish are smart, interesting animals with their own unique personalities. Hundreds of studies have shown that fish are intelligent, can use tools and have impressive, long-term memories and sophisticated social structures.

Fish can tell what time of day it is and can talk to one another through sounds that are inaudible to humans. Research has also clearly shown that fish experience both physical and emotional pain. Their physical reaction to trauma – thrashing, grunting and rocking in distress is obvious, and once harmed they will remember what caused the pain and actively avoid it.

So fishing, whether for profit or for sport cannot be considered a harmless or humane activity. For people who oppose cruelty to animals the suffering that fishing causes should be a real concern.

Dr. Lynne Sneddon is a British marine biologist who is a senior lecturer in animal behavior and welfare and a research fellow in fish welfare at the University of Liverpool, UK and the University of Chester, UK. She has conducted detailed studies on fish behavior and intelligence.

There’s an old myth that fish have a three second memory. Can you share with us your latest work and findings on fish memory and personality?

I have colleagues who’ve shown that gold fish can remember for three years, not three seconds. So, there is a lot of data out there showing that fish behavior and memory is of quite long duration and it’s really linked to how long a fish lives. So, short-lived fish do tend to have short memories.

So for example, stickleback which lives for a year, the longest memory recorded was 22 days, because why would you remember for 10 years if you only live for a year? My work showed that fish were able to learn from each other and alter their behavioral reactions subsequently. So that indicates that they obtain information just by observing another fish and then make behavioral decisions based upon that.

One thing that fish are really good at are, is smelling, and recent experiments have shown that they can actually recognize their own smell and can recognize themselves. Now, self-recognition is thought to be a higher order mental process, only seen in dolphins and dogs, but actually, that’s done by sight, by mirror recognition experiments. Fish don’t really live in such a visual world and so they use smell to recognize themselves, and that’s showing that fish are capable of a higher mental order process.

India has the third largest fishing industry in the world and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals India, or PETA India, recently released a detailed report entitled “Assessment of Animal Welfare & Environmental Impact of Indian Fisheries & Aquaculture” along with a brief film of the same name.

Commercial fishing is a big business, and its methods are as cruel as those that are used in factory farms or slaughterhouses. Fish are impaled, crushed, suffocated and gutted all while fully conscious. The horrible cruelty that fishers inflict on hundreds of billions of fish is completely unregulated.

Fishing boats may go after certain species of fish, but their hooks and nets drag up thousands of other marine animals like sharks, dolphins, sea turtles, birds, seals, whales, and other species of fish who get tangled in nets. These unwanted catches are also known as “bycatch” and without a second thought are forcefully thrown back overboard.

The injured beings often slowly bleed to death in the water. Scientists have found that nearly 1,000 marine mammals – dolphins, whales, and porpoises – die each day after they are caught in fishing nets.

When we return we’ll continue examining the brutality imposed on marine life and discuss the barbarous practice of aquaculture. Please stay tuned to Supreme Master Television.

This is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television with our program regarding the merciless exploitation of marine life by the fishing industry and others. Aquaculture or fish farms are inhumane and dangerous, not only for the innocent beings imprisoned in these heartless operations but also for the humans who consume factory farmed fish.

Fish farmers raise thousands of fish in ponds, pools and concrete tanks. Aqua farms are located close to shorelines, and fish in these farms are packed into net or mesh cages. All fish farms are rife with pollution, disease and suffering. According to investigators, the ponds in some government fish farms were kept in such an unhygienic condition that they were no better than drainage water, and many fish who were forced to live in dirty water contracted skin diseases.

Fish were infested with parasites and suffered from other illnesses. Many ponds were so dirty that it was difficult to see whether there were fish in them. Fish became stressed as handlers carelessly transferred them from ponds to plastic bags that it did not have adequate water and oxygen.

Fish that live in the oceans, rivers and elsewhere are severely affected by the enormous amounts of pollution and garbage that humanity dumps into water bodies every day. People who consume fish are taking into their systems these very same toxic substances in highly concentrated amounts.

Fish live in water that is so polluted, you would never dream of drinking it, but you ingest this toxic brew; bacteria, contaminants, heavy metals and oil, every time you eat fish. Many studies have revealed that fish often contain unusually high levels of mercury.

High levels of mercury, which accumulates in the environment in fish flesh and in the bodies of people who eat fish, contribute to birth defects and other health problems. And several studies have demonstrated lower mental acuity among children of women who consume fish during their pregnancies.

As elaborated upon in the PETA India report “Assessment of Animal Welfare & Environmental Impact of Indian Fisheries & Aquaculture” the fishing industry is wiping out marine species at a rapid rate from the oceans with absolutely no thought given to the future survival of sea life or even of humanity.

Commercial fishing and aquaculture have an extremely negative impact on the environment. Commercial fishing destroys biodiversity, as wide nets sweep up the fish in their path, they take coral habitats with them. Commercial fishers have devastated the ocean’s eco- system to the extent that some large fish populations are only 10% as large as they were in the 1950s.

According to one study, the world’s oceans could be empty of fish by 2048 because of overfishing, loss of habitat, climate change and pollution. Fish farms have caused serious eutrophication of water columns and sediment in enclosed coastal areas, causing the seabed environment to become drastically depleted of oxygen.

A 2005 United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization report concluded the following: One-quarter of the world’s fish stocks are overly exploited, depleted or are recovering from depletion. They have endured excessive fishing pressure, which has reduced them significantly. About half of the stocks are fully exploited. They are being fished at or close to their maximum sustainable limits.

There is no room for further expansion of fishing activity. Eighty-two varieties of fresh water, cold water, brackish and marine water fish are either endangered or vulnerable.

Trawling ships can be up to the size of a football pitch and may stay at sea for six months at a time. Trawling has been compared to strip mining given that the total ecological destruction it leaves behind. It has been estimated that the practice has already caused the extinction of 10,000 marine species. Scientific studies show that fish that somehow manage to escape the trawling net are so stressed that 10 to 30 % will die after the event, with up to 70% of herring perishing.

Bottom trawling is among the most damaging and unsustainable fishing practices in India. It involves dragging huge heavy nets along the sea floor. The large metal plates and rubber wheels that are attached to these nets move along the seabed and crush nearly everything in their path. Deep water life forms are profoundly affected by this practice, taking anywhere from decades to hundreds of years to recover; if they recover at all.

It’s clear that commercial fishing and aquaculture cause endless and unspeakable suffering to aquatic animals, but what about so-called “recreational fishing” and keeping fish as pets? Let’s hear from Dr. Sneddon once again.

If you accept that fish are capable of pain and fear and stress, you have to accept that if you are simply catching a fish for your own enjoyment, you are potentially causing pain and fear to that fish. And it’s been proven that the fish is very stressed, they can suffer mortality and that their subsequent behavior can be affected after they’ve been released.

In terms of living in a gold fish bowl, I think that’s also wrong, I think any animal, providing it with these static, unchanging environments would result in boredom and frustration and probably lead to ill health. You couldn’t keep a dog in the same air, confined air with no stimulation, you couldn’t do that, but yet we apply it to fish.

To commemorate World Oceans Day, let us take the opportunity to begin taking better care of the oceans by adopting the compassionate, noble, organic vegan diet, thus allowing our sea animal friends to not only replenish themselves but also to live forever in tranquility.

Finally, we would like to convey our gratitude to Dr. Lynne Sneddon and the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals India for helping to bringing to the public’s attention the alarming state of our marine environments and the urgent need to preserve them.

For more details, please visit the following websites:
PETA India www.PETAIndia.com
Lynne Sneddon www.Liv.ac.uk/marinebiology

Thank you for your company today on Stop Animal Cruelty. Coming up next is Enlightening Entertainment right after Noteworthy News, here on Supreme Master Television. Let us all lead compassionate lifestyles in harmony with nature.

Did you know that in Croatia it’s against the law to disturb a snake? And that a Swiss law stipulates that every goldfish kept must have a companion? Increasingly, all around the world, comprehensive animal welfare legislation is being passed to safeguard our animal friends.

I liked to represent and to help minorities, and animals are a weak minority in society. And on a personal level, I was once deprived, not allowed to speak for 10 days for medical reasons, for health reasons, and then I started to feel with the animals and to listen quite closely to what animal experts want to tell us.

Be sure to watch “Protecting Our Brethren: Animal Welfare Laws From Around the World” Saturday, June 12, on Animal World: Our Co-Inhabitants.