Pets & Animals >
Animal Rights & Issues
Get a Widget for this title
RSS FeedFish in tanks and aquariums: Plastic prisons or delightful decor?
Title endorsed in part by:
Results so far:
| Prisons | 29% | 69 votes | Total: 240 votes | |
| Decor | 71% | 171 votes |
Prisons
Write now
Print
Invite a writer™
Add to FavoritesThere is no doubt about it. The fish is not in it's natural environment. it is curtailed to a certain footage by footage aquarium, and it relies on it's human carer to ensure that it gets an adequate food supply and a clean and healthy place to live.
Looking after any kind of aquarium fish is a responsibility. True, they make nice decor, and true there can be beneficial aspects to "keeping" fish that helps to lower stress and encourage an enjoyable past time, but that is what you are doing. You are keeping fish out of their natural state.
To the fish it is a prison. No matter how congenial the surroundings and no matter how intent you have been in creating as near normal an atmosphere as possible, the simple truth of the matter is these fish are trapped in a tank on dry land somewhere and they cannot get out.
Years ago I had a small fish tank and I looked after it tirelessly... until I got bored with it. Keeping a tank going at the right temperature and making sure the fish are adequately fed and the water quality is spot on, is a hobby. You have to be a bit passionate about your fish. Even the minutest change in water temperature can cause problems, and if you overfeed them by accident...
My dad got some black mollies for me and I used to think they were so gorgeous. I loved to sit by the tank and watch them for hours. That is until I came down one morning and found that nearly all of my beautiful fish had jumped out of the feeding hole through the roof of the tank and lay asphyxiated on the ground. I managed to save a few of them and could never figure out why they had done that. In my childish mind I imagined they were trying to escape the confines of the tank.
It all became a bit of a worry really and in the end I didn't really care about how pretty the tank was, I just looked at it and felt guilty for keeping the fish in the first place and frustrated that I had to keep up with the upkeep of the tank because the fish depended on me for survival.
I used to think that keeping fish purely for making your home a prettier place to live in was OK because you couldn't get emotionally attached to a fish, but in the end I was wrong. Fish have just as much right to live on this earth as us. They were given a life to live and who are we to use another living creature as a form of moving wallpaper? The thing that saddens me is that a lot of fish were born for this purpose alone and have never even seen the ocean.
How sad is that?
Learn more about this author, Jane Allyson.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Decor
Anyone who spends enough time with animals eventually learns to "speak their language". Although not with words, fish can and do communicate. When a fish is happy it will appear active, its fins spread wide, its color vibrant and eyes clear and sharp. An unhappy fish, by contrast, will be dull and listless, it will cower and hide in a corner, its color faded and fins clamped tight.
The reason it is important to know this, is because it must be understood that fish themselves can provide all the information we need to know whether they are unhappy about being kept in an aquarium. Properly maintained, and of proper size and decor, an aquarium can be a safe, parasite - and predator - free sanctuary. On average, most fish can be expected to live more than twice as long in an aquarium versus those living in the wild. For instance the cardinal tetra, a popular aquarium fish, can be expected to live 2 to 5 years in a well maintained aquarium. In the wild, they are considered a "seasonal" fish, the vast majority of them dying within one year of life due to predation or stagnant, crowded conditions as water recedes during the dry season. Surely such a fish would be lucky to have an environmentally controlled aquarium to live in. In addition to a longer life span, specimens kept in captivity will grow much larger and appear healthier than those found in the wild.
Consider also that the aquarium hobby relies much more heavily on captive bred stock than on wild caught. Even in the saltwater aquarium hobby, many fish are now being made less expensive by offering captive bred options. Many of these fish would not exist at all if it weren't for the breeding industry. In addition to fishes, many other aquatic life forms benefit from the aquarium hobby. Most live corals sold in the United States are now propagated in captivity, and in doing so new knowledge of these creatures' needs is being gleaned from their husbandry. Potentially endangered species may be preserved as a result of this knowledge and technology.
Naturally there is a difference between a well maintained aquarium and an undersized goldfish bowl. The fish keeper must understand the responsibility they possess to properly care for the aquarium inhabitants. Destructive collection practices must likewise be avoided. But when this responsibility is met with enthusiasm and respect an aquarium can be beneficial, not only to its owner but to its inhabitants as well.
Learn more about this author, Kenton Turner.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.
Difference of opinion? Debate now.
- Animal Rights & Issues
- Should penalties for animal cruelty be more severe?
- Should horse-drawn carriages be banned from US cities?
- Is the media morally responsible for demonizing Pit Bulls?
- Are fur ranches humane?
- Is it ethical to eat minature cows?
- Should Eight Belles' Jockey be suspended pending a legal investigation?
