by Brenda Nelson

Created on: April 25, 2009   Last Updated: July 12, 2011

When people think about cruelty in the pet industry they often think of puppy mills, abused dogs, neglected cats, and so on. People rarely consider the cruelty that exists behind,and within, the aquarium industry. Perhaps it is because people do not have any pictures of fish with big sad eyes. Perhaps it is because fish make no sound when they are suffering. It is time that people stopped turning their heads and consider the trauma that fish endure so they can bring tranquility into homes by gracing aquariums.

Catching

Some methods of catching fish are terribly cruel, and although illegal in some areas, they still continue today. These methods consist of dumping poison on a coral reef, or using an explosive in the water. Some fish are killed immediately (coral and other animals are certainly killed), those who are stunned are collected and sold in the aquarium industry.

These methods primarily take place for the purpose of collecting marine (salt water) fish, as they are harder to breed in captivity and the demand exceeds producers ability to keep up.

Smuggling

Although people do not hear about it as often as they hear about cases where people were found smuggling other animals out of tropical countries, fish are often the victims of illegal smuggling. You may wonder how this hurts the fish. Smugglers are in it for the money, not for the care of the pet, they have removed an animal from its natural place (where it may even be endangered) taking fish out of the breeding population. The same care is not given as when properly transporting other legal animals. Smuggling is done cheaply for maximum profit gain, if animals die in the process, so be it. Sometimes smuggled animals are put to death when the smuggler is caught by authorities.

Death on the Road

From the breeders, fish must be transported to the stores. They are placed in bags and shipped, the bags often contain very small amounts of water, and larger amounts of air. To reduce shipping costs, and space, as many fish are put in a bag as possible, in the case of Betta fish, each one is put in a bag as small as three inches square.

Any temperature fluctuation and an entire shipment could be killed. Any delays in time and the fish quite simply run out of air. It is normal for a shipment to arrive with a percentage of dead fish, the store owner simply puts a "claim" into the supplier. Fish (and all animals sold in pet stores) have a very high price

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