Do fish feel pain?

viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
My friends and I have always wondered about this everytime we go fishing and when my fish get sick. Do fish really feel pain? I remember reading somewhere that fish do not have the part of the brain to feel pain. Don't remember where I read that though.
 
otradnoje

otradnoje

Member
They best argument for fish not feeling pain is that if fish felt pain, they would not swim away from the hook and the direction they are being reeled in. They would try to minimize the pain by going with the pull of the hook rather than fighting. Make sense?
 
viper_930

viper_930

Active Member
Yes, but in the wild when an animal is being pulled against its will, it usually means that another animal is trying to catch them and eat them. All animals who have predators know this, so they would want to swim away and feel a bit of pain rather than get eaten.
 
belothsurf

belothsurf

Member
Hmmm, good question. I'm sure they feel pain. Any animal with a sense of touch can feel pain. The question is to what degree does it "hurt"? Pain is very much a psychological concept, and is intepreted by the brain, and is influenced by many things, such as expectations. A very basic example would be, what hurts one person, doesn't hurt another, even though it's the same injury. Or, if you've ever been really focused on something, look down, and see that your cut, then it starts to hurt. Anyway, because a lot of animals lack the higher brain functions that we have, they don't experience pain in the same "way" we do, I suppose. But they do experience pain.
 
neoreef

neoreef

Member
Fish have brains and a spinal column, so yes, they do have a central nervous system. Whether or not they have neurons that fire in response to pain is another question. I think they must.
Fish swim away from another fish that nips them, they don't like getting lifted out of water, and show it by wiggling. They feel.
 
T

tizzo

Guest
I would think that if fish have the capacity to itch (ick), that they would also feel pain. My yellow tang got stung by my BTA and he darted around the tank shaking a kind of "get this thing off of me", type shake. I have no doubt that he was in pain then. And come to think of it, if fish couldn't feel pain, then the anemone wouldn't be of much protection against predaters!! Yup, I think the feel pain.
But corals?? No way. (IMO)
 
belothsurf

belothsurf

Member
Yes...........Corals too.(sorta)..........Pain is nothing but a word given to express a level of discomfort that "WE" experience........interpret what you want into what an animal feels.......granted, a coral has no brain, and like I said before, "pain" is really a psychological cocept. Does a coral get "hurt", no, but does it "sense" something?, does it "feel"? Sure it does, otherwise it wouldn't react the way it does. It just can't tell the difference between good and bad feelings. Fortunately we can.......depending on our expectations, it can be good or bad..............:D
 
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