pumpkinstrokemarrow

We also learned after the event that it was just as well that we did not go to Perranporth beach as this had been taken over by dog lovers for the day. It seems that they were protesting the new dog regulations there. Indignant dog lovers were said to have converged on the beach from all over the county and beyond. I wonder if the new regulations also apply to horses - given that I understand that running horses in the surf is very good for their feet. Would it be fair to deny them access?

While we are on animal rights I ought to mention 'Do Fish Feel Pain?' from Victoria Braithwaite via the OUP. Another easy read, but also, I thought, a well presented canter through the question of whether fish feel pain.

This, to my mind, is a serious issue. We kill millions of fish every year in ways which might well cause pain if fish are up for pain at all. If they are, I think I might get squeamish about eating them until we have found some way of doing it humanely, or at least until the arguments for and against have been thoroughly exercised in the light of this new fact. Not nice to be causing pain in fishes even if they are not able to tell us about it. There is also the business of all those millions of recreational anglers who play with fish for sport in ways that, again if fish are up for pain, might well cause pain.

My view is that Braithwaite overstates her case a little. I think she has established fish pain as a possibility, no more. Something that we need to do more work on. But ground work has been done. Fish do have the same sort of nerves that we have, scattered over the body, to register damage. And damage to the nose, for example, does result in signals being sent up those nerves. Fast reflexes from the spinal cord of the same sort that we have. Followed by other things when the signals reach the brain a little later. She reports that the behavioural response of trout, for example, to pain can be modified if not eliminated by the use of anesthetic. That trout will normally avoid something which they have learned is painful or a pain hazard. But if the trout is by itself and the pain hazard is co-located with a second trout, the first trout will brave the pain for the sake of the company of the second trout. Trout, it seems, are social animals. So she demonstrates some complex behaviours - not just reflex actions - in the face of pain which we associate with consciousness. But are the trouts conscious? The consensus - and to my mind sensible - view seems to be that no consciousness means no pain. At least no pain that we need bother about from a welfare point of view.

She then goes on to talk about various other things that trouts can do, like learning to navigate mazes. Or the groupers that team up with moray eels to hunt fish out of crevices in coral reefs. Fishes are not as dumb as they might look. But this is not the same as establishing their consciousness.

So where are we going to draw the line? Normal human adults are conscious and feel pain in a way that matters. Earthworms probably do not. But where in-between are we going to draw the line? There is a lot of territory and possibly a lot of pain out there. I believe that mammals are probably conscious in the same sort of way that we are, perhaps dimly conscious, perhaps in the way of some mentally handicapped, or otherwise damaged, humans. Does dim pain count as much as bright pain? Many people believe that birds are conscious. But what about fishes? Or crabs. In which can also be seen a behavioural response to pain.

I guess I had better carry on eating cod while I decently can. Good for the heart.