Do fish feel pain?

Did you know that fish feel pain? Several years ago, a study suggesting that fact was published in a British journal and was based on research involving injecting irritating substances into fishes’ lip areas and watching the reaction.

Naturally, the PETA folks jumped on that report as even more reason why any sports fishing involving a hook and line should be banned. After all, “fish have feelings, too.”

I don’t doubt that fish react to unpleasant stimuli, but I’m not sure stating they feel pain is an accurate description of that reaction. After the injection of irritant, saying that fish rubbing their lips on the bottom of the tank or shaking their heads is a reaction to pain is something we humans can understand and relate to, but is the reaction really to pain or simply to the irritation?

Within the human race, there are widely differing levels of reaction to a stimulus. Let's use the example of a mosquito buzzing around your head. For some people, just the buzzing noise can be irritating to the point of being painful, while others might not be bothered even when the mosquito is biting their arm.

My wife has a relatively low pain threshold. She reacts to cuts on her fingers or hands immediately. I, however, often don’t even know I’ve cut myself until I either see or feel the blood running down my fingers. If the two of us can have such a wide range of reaction to a “pain” stimulus, how then, would a fox or a moose react to an injury and how great is the range of reaction within either of these two species of animals?

Keep in mind that fish are classified as a “lower life form” than mammals, with a much simpler brain and less sophisticated development of the nervous system. Their sense of what we call “pain” is, in all probability, quite different than how we perceive the same stimuli.

Think about where fish live and what they eat. In the Interior, northern pike have been documented as freezing in a shallow lake and, with breakup and thawing, coming “back to life.” Was there "pain" involved in this process or did the fish just simply "wake up" and start becoming active?

In the fish world, big pike eat little pike. Little pike are swallowed whole and often alive. Little pike have teeth and, probably, get a bite or two in before the digestive system of the big pike kills them. Other fish species have spines that “stick” the bigger fish as it swallows them. Imagine what either of those two scenarios would feel like to us.

Trying to compare the two species, humans and northern pike, in their respective perceptions of “pain” is like comparing the cliché of apples and oranges.

So, am I saying that all this research should be disregarded? No, I am not. Just understand that because we experience the world through human senses doesn’t mean the rest of God’s creatures have the same sensations. We tend to anthropomorphize our feelings to other creatures when, in fact, the reality of what the animals feel is totally different than the human sensation.

Will I continue to sport fish using a hook and line? You bet! I am a “meat fisherman.” When I go fishing, I am interested in catching, killing, and eating a fish. I generally “catch and release” only if the landed fish is not legal to keep, has significantly degraded in quality, or is foul-hooked and I am required, by law, to let it go.

Do I have a problem with “catch and release” anglers? No, I don’t. That approach to fishing just isn’t my cup of tea, so to speak. I enjoy harvesting some of the food necessary to sustain my life, so when I go fishing, I have food in mind. I enjoy the “fight” involved in landing a king or silver salmon, but utilizing the fish as food is the bottom line.

I don’t think catching a fish just for the “sport” of landing it and then releasing it after an exhausting battle is fair to the fish. Knowing that that level of exhaustion is probably fatal to the fish after release borders on wanton waste. There are proper and established procedures allowing catch and release which do little if any harm to the fish.

I was taught not to play with my food. You be responsible for your own actions.

Howard Delo is a retired fisheries biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. This column is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman or its parent company, Wick Communications. You can leave Delo a message by emailing sports@frontiersman.com.