Do Fish Feel Pain? The science behind whether Fish Feel Pain

Editor's Weekly Ramblings 24

Friday 5th September 2003

Do Fish Feel Pain?

"The gull turned its head in rapid, almost robotic movements, as if to verify it was alone, and then it hopped down to where the clam it had dropped lay open on the smooth, hard-packed sand. The clam cracked open like an egg and Jack saw raw meat inside, still twitching, or perhaps that was his imagination. Don't want to see this. But before he could turn away, the gull's yellow, hooked beak was pulling at the meat, stretching it like a rubber band, and he felt his stomach knot into a slick fist. In his mind he could hear that stretched tissue screaming - nothing coherent, only stupid flesh crying out in pain." - The Talisman - Stephen King and Peter Straub

Pain is not a respecter of intelligence. We tend to assume that the stupidest individual we know is capable of feeling as much pain as we do. We don't tend to say:

"Well, Bob is pretty dumb you know. Are we really sure that he felt pain when that truck hit him? Ok. I know he flew 25 feet in the air, let out a blood curdling scream and then thrashed about for ten minutes. But was that just a motor response? Was he really feeling it?"

We just don't. Bob may be dumb, but pain he most certainly did feel. And yet change it around to say:

"Well fish are pretty dumb you know. Are we really sure that fish felt pain when we hauled it 25 feet in the air with a metal hook in its mouth, juggled it, patted ourselves on the back for a bit, took a picture, then weighed it while all the while it is gasping for air (I did throw it back after all!)" And we aren't so sure.

Fish aren't cuddly. They don't wag their fins at you when you enter the room. They seem distant, aloof, independent, rather like cats really, only without the mitigating fur that is amusing to stroke. Tell me, if you stuck a hook through your cats mouth, dunked him in water and stood and watched while he floundered desperately for air. Would you suspect that might be a painful experience?

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service The Joys of Angling

Is that same experience painful for a fish though? That is the first question. There is actually rather a lot of science to back up the fact that fish do feel pain. Recent research published in April 2003 by The Royal Society investigated the sensory system of trout through their responses to injections of bee venom and acetic acid around their mouths. In effect the research was trying to find out whether fish possessed the same kind of pain receptors that have already been identified in amphibians, birds and mammals including humans. And secondly, whether the response to the pain producer (i.e. the bee sting etc) was not just a reflex response which might be akin for example to pressing the belly of a talking barbie doll; but rather an actual adverse reaction to the pain stimulus.