Great article! I think it’s great that you’re bringing attention to how well-meaning dietary choices like pescetarianism and swapping beef for chicken can inadvertently cause more suffering than the alternative.
That said, there remain some knock-on considerations which leave me undecided as to whether or not pescetarianism is better than a typical meat-eating diet:
The magnitude of the difference between the suffering of a wild-caught fish’s death through fishing and the expected alternative (most likely predation?) is very unclear to me.
Chickens are similar in size and perceived probability of sentience to the larger fish we eat. Since over 90% of chickens are factory farmed, and over 90% of fish are wild-caught, this weakly points to chicken consumption being worse.
The size of fish people eat seems very relevant, with anchovies seeming much worse than larger fish like salmon. It’s plausible that one’s particular diet within pescetarianism could determine whether they place above or below a typical meat-eater. For example, a diet of only oysters and mussels is almost certainly better than the typical meat-eating diet, but a diet of only shrimp is likely much worse.
The net effects of wild-caught fishing on wild animal suffering seem extremely unclear.
Great article! I think it’s great that you’re bringing attention to how well-meaning dietary choices like pescetarianism and swapping beef for chicken can inadvertently cause more suffering than the alternative.
That said, there remain some knock-on considerations which leave me undecided as to whether or not pescetarianism is better than a typical meat-eating diet:
The magnitude of the difference between the suffering of a wild-caught fish’s death through fishing and the expected alternative (most likely predation?) is very unclear to me.
Chickens are similar in size and perceived probability of sentience to the larger fish we eat. Since over 90% of chickens are factory farmed, and over 90% of fish are wild-caught, this weakly points to chicken consumption being worse.
The size of fish people eat seems very relevant, with anchovies seeming much worse than larger fish like salmon. It’s plausible that one’s particular diet within pescetarianism could determine whether they place above or below a typical meat-eater. For example, a diet of only oysters and mussels is almost certainly better than the typical meat-eating diet, but a diet of only shrimp is likely much worse.
The net effects of wild-caught fishing on wild animal suffering seem extremely unclear.