To what extent is human killing of fish worse than its likely natural death?
Regarding fish, why are we worse than the predators that fishing displace? In my view both fishing and hunting are massively less problematic than industrial animal farming, because the long confinement, overcrowding and mutilation that characterizes industrial stockbreeding is absent.
The suffering at death is only a tiny fraction of total suffering in industrial animal farming, and it is the life, not the death of farmed animals what makes the bulk of its negative impact.
On top of that, the majority of fish is very likely non conscious, while of course, conscience is noumenal, so we don’t know and cannot know. But their brains are tiny, their behavioural patters in general are very limited, etc (see here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-014-9469-4)
“Every three days, we kill more fish than there are humans, because we totally ignore the interests of such creatures. Humanity is carrying out a crime of unimaginable proportions.”
“The fishing industry alone kills 3-8 billion animals every day, most by slow suffocation, crushing, or live disemboweling”
Of course, I am commenting on this, because the enormous number of killed fish are mainly from captures, not from farming. Fish farming looks bad, but farming is marginal regarding fish.
As far as I can tell, “3-8 billion killed fish” figure indeed refers to caught fishes, not to farmed fishes (following the links it comes about from the classic 3 trillion / year estimate; http://fishcount.org.uk/published/std/fishcountstudy.pdf). I think that this part of the article is misleading; the relevant number would be the total count of fishes living in farms at any given time, as well as the number of farm slaughters.
I don’t think that’s right. Half the fishes sold to humans for consumption are farmed, but if I understand correctly, a lot of caught fishes are used as feed in farms. Those fishes used for feed will also be relatively smaller and therefore more numerous. So I expect it to indeed be an order of magnitude error.
To what extent is human killing of fish worse than its likely natural death?
Regarding fish, why are we worse than the predators that fishing displace? In my view both fishing and hunting are massively less problematic than industrial animal farming, because the long confinement, overcrowding and mutilation that characterizes industrial stockbreeding is absent.
The suffering at death is only a tiny fraction of total suffering in industrial animal farming, and it is the life, not the death of farmed animals what makes the bulk of its negative impact.
On top of that, the majority of fish is very likely non conscious, while of course, conscience is noumenal, so we don’t know and cannot know. But their brains are tiny, their behavioural patters in general are very limited, etc (see here: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10539-014-9469-4)
Did you read the article? It is about intensive fish farming, and addresses all your points in detail, which you do not acknowledge.
I was not aware of the enormous weigth of aquaculture on final fish production. I was thinking it was around 10%, but it is close to one half.
https://ourworldindata.org/rise-of-aquaculture
Onmizoid is rigth, and I have retracted my comment.
“Every three days, we kill more fish than there are humans, because we totally ignore the interests of such creatures. Humanity is carrying out a crime of unimaginable proportions.”
“The fishing industry alone kills 3-8 billion animals every day, most by slow suffocation, crushing, or live disemboweling”
Of course, I am commenting on this, because the enormous number of killed fish are mainly from captures, not from farming. Fish farming looks bad, but farming is marginal regarding fish.
The article gives a magnitude for fish farming. It does not talk about wild fish. Why is the scale of wild fish relevant?
As far as I can tell, “3-8 billion killed fish” figure indeed refers to caught fishes, not to farmed fishes (following the links it comes about from the classic 3 trillion / year estimate; http://fishcount.org.uk/published/std/fishcountstudy.pdf). I think that this part of the article is misleading; the relevant number would be the total count of fishes living in farms at any given time, as well as the number of farm slaughters.
I thought the same; but nowadays, with half of fish being farmed, it can be an error, but not an order of magnitud error.
I don’t think that’s right. Half the fishes sold to humans for consumption are farmed, but if I understand correctly, a lot of caught fishes are used as feed in farms. Those fishes used for feed will also be relatively smaller and therefore more numerous. So I expect it to indeed be an order of magnitude error.