an interesting view on "painted" fish

[malkore]

FishyPeanut,

I'm growing tired of these posts that seem intent on instigating a heated debate, then followed by an "Oh I didn't mean to get everyone riled up by posting a non-standard opinion on a heated topic".

This is the third time.

CUT
IT
OUT.

[Devilishturtles]

Whether you see them at Wal-Mart, or any bigbox store is due to the wholesaler. If the wholesaler stops carrying them, they won't come in/be able to be ordered.

that was an interesting link. i like my fish the way they are, like my big blackskirt sparkles silver when it turns under the lights, and the clown loaches have vivid black and orange, the lamp eyed tetra's have cool red eyes. even my dojo has nice golden spots and tones when i watch it. and it's all natural

[Tostada]

In a small way I can understand where they're coming from, although it seems hypocritical. I would assume, however, that in most cases the people who don't think fish should be abused like that are not actually the ones making the final decision of what is sold by the store, i.e. the manager may be somewhat against selling painted fish, but there's no chance of the corporate office letting him pull fish that sell well.

To the contrary, when you have big places like PetSmart who can make a difference setting an example by not selling painted fish, this is exploited by smaller places who are going to be able to sell them much more easily. It's like a drug dealer saying, "I don't think people should do heroin, they're going to do it whether or not I sell it to them, and at least I supply clean needles."

Originally Posted by JohnPaul

You can't have it both ways. If you are against the practice, demonstrate it by the actions you take and the decisions you make. Otherwise, all the words coming out of your mouth are nothing but a bunch of B.S.

Originally Posted by SCFatz

Peanut...JP nailed it with his last paragraph imo.

The person you spoke with might very well believe the position...but it does not make the position any more valid.

I don't know about that. Things regarding animal rights have a lot of gray area, and fish are right on the cusp of what people care about. Think about how many people would kill a person for $100 ... then a cat, then a fish, then an ant. There's a line at which people generally don't care.

Of course, they usually care more about torturing animals than outright killing them. They'll eat a cow, but the conditions that veal calves are kept in are wrong! It's an interesting morality we have. Which begs the question of how much "torture" is painting a fish? It's basically a tattoo -- a tattoo that most would argue is inhumanely administered, but none the less you can tell by observing painted fish that they're probably not in some state of perpetual pain after the fact.

I think most people would say that amputating a fish's tail is worse than what they do to most painted fish, and I would tend to agree. You can observe a fish with a missing tail and tell they're having trouble. It's upsetting to see.

Anyway, the point I was really getting at is that it doesn't necessarily make you a hypocrite just because you enable people to do something that you do not personally agree with. Most people who don't drink would still sell alcohol in a store they owned without feeling like they were doing something wrong. To the contrary, there are many things that I don't do but I would be extremely offended if someone told me I couldn't. Right or wrong, this is definitely an opinion that most people apply to creatures which are "further down on the food chain." It's why most people on this forum still eat fish.

When you translate this into outright fish abuse, it's a different story, but there may still be room for people to take a position that neither fully condones nor fully condemns a practice.

[DepotFish]

This reminds me of the people who claim to have "rescued" bettas from Walmart. The truth is, if you gave walmart money, you haven't "rescued" anything. You just created a space and a reason for them to stock more.

[App]

Originally Posted by JohnPaul

Actually, I disagree quite strongly. The problem with that argument is that, it is BECAUSE of the fact that pet stores buy painted glassfish (and, in turn, consumers buy them) that there is a market for them in the first place.

If pet stores refused to buy them, then the people who do the "painting" would stop doing the painting, and there would be no issue of fish sitting in warehouses waiting to die.

It's kinda like saying, "Personally I'm against using pesticides on fresh fruit, but since all this pesticide-laden fruit is sitting here in the grocery store in front of me, I might as well buy it or else it will just go to waste." Or, to draw the analogy closer to the pet-store owner, if you (theoretically) owned your own small grocery store, you can't very well say, "I'm morally opposed to spraying fruits with pesticides," while at the same time stocking all of your shelves with pesticide-laden fruit. You end up just sounding like a hypocrite (because, of course, that is exactly what you would be).

Same thing with a pet store that, on one hand, says they are against the practice of "painting" these fish, while all the while buying & selling them, and thus continuing to reinforce the practice.

You can't have it both ways. If you are against the practice, demonstrate it by the actions you take and the decisions you make. Otherwise, all the words coming out of your mouth are nothing but a bunch of B.S.

I just had to quote this so people would see it.

/What he said

[fish_4_all]

Well, here are some tidbits to consider when focusing on Painted fish as your target of disgust.

Mass bred fish are often held in concrete pools that are 1/10th the size they should be for the number of fish they have in them. They are also some of the nastiest, messiest, worst kept pools I have ever seen. Tens of thousands of fish die before the owners ever know they were even born because of the poor conditions. These fish are mass produced but can't be kept on a shelf because they have need to be cared for. Many of the facilities dump thousands and possibly millions of fish in the trash due to them being too old to be sold to the local fish stores. Otos, as many have stated, are wild caught and transported in some of the worst conditions imagineable. This leads to a majority of them dying long and painful deaths by starving to death. I would also bet that a majority of all tropical fish that are bought to sell to LFS are bought in such numbers that the major distributor can expect 40-80% losses and still turn a tidy profit.

Then you have the painted fish. If anyone has ever seen the laboratories that some of the painted fish are done in they would have seen a pristene condition facility that is sterile and the fish they paint are treated like royalty. Who is going to pay someone to inject these dyes so precisely and just say oh well, if they get 1/10th of them right and 1/20th survive we can still turn a profit at just a little more than the unpianted version of the same fish is sold for? Then you have the backdoor ones that sell these ripoofs that are treated worse than even any fish out there.

Before we go condemning a practice that most consider inhumane and so abusive, why don't we look at the fact that we all buy fish for our fish tanks that could very well have come from much worse conditions than the painted fish ever had to endure?

I for one, like I said before, will not buy them because I think they look unnatural, not because of the practice. I also know the conditions that swordtails, platties, mollies, bettas, neons, shrimp, crayfish, and many other species are raised in and if I based my decision on their treatment, my tanks would be plants only.

So before you condemn a LFS or somewhere that sells painted fish, take a look at the other fish they sell and ask just what conditions you think they were raised in and the abuse they went through. Will it make a difference in if you buy a painted fish, probably not, but don't boycot a store because of a decision based one fish when most of the fish in the store could have been through much worse. Maybe it owuld be better to find a source of distributors that have a reputaiton of humane treatment of fish they breed, if one exists and try to get your LFS to buy their fish from them. And don't condemn the store clerk who sells the painted fish when the shops that don't carry them have some fish that could have been through worse.

I would personally rather buy a painted fish that was kept in pristine water conditions and not stressed other than the few second it took to inject the dye before I would buy some of the fish that I know are raised and bred in conditions I wouldn't breed cockroaches in.

If you don't believe me, do the research and see for yourself what conditions some our favorite fish are bred and raised in. Then decide which fish is actually worse to own or so ethically wrong for the LFS to carry and sell.

[shayfish]

I am reminded of a lfs I was in today with two motoro stingrays with a sign on the tank, saying they would require a large tank, 120 gallons or more. Meanwhile, there they were, two of them, among a handful of fish no less, in a tank no bigger than about 70.

That's (the previous post) why we all do our best to give the fish we have good safe healthy happy homes. We all know that pet store fish tend to go through some suffering. But we're all doing our part by keeping the fish we have in the best environment possible. Its really all we can do but as long as there are people like there are on this forum out there, there will be some lucky fish who have it really good.

Excuse me, I must go hug a tree now.

[hc8719]

Originally Posted by DepotFish

This reminds me of the people who claim to have "rescued" bettas from Walmart. The truth is, if you gave walmart money, you haven't "rescued" anything. You just created a space and a reason for them to stock more.

i dont see it like this at all, wal-mart will continue buying bettas, they still make a profit, even if they loose half a shipment. so the fish are going to die anyways, and by purchasing that one fish or adf dying in one of those stuipd little cups, you've saved them.

[src]

Originally Posted by hc8719

i dont see it like this at all, wal-mart will continue buying bettas, they still make a profit, even if they loose half a shipment. so the fish are going to die anyways, and by purchasing that one fish or adf dying in one of those stuipd little cups, you've saved them.

I can't believe how many people have trouble with this simple equation:

If the betas in cups didn't sell, eventually WalMart would stop buying them.

If painted fish didn't sell, eventually the fish stores would stop selling them.

If (product) doesn't sell, eventually the retailer stops stocking (product). Period.

Kill the demand, and you kill the market, and you kill the practice. "Rescuing" fish from retailers just feeds the supply/demand cycle. Yes, it makes you feel good, but in fact all it does is prove to the retailer that they selling enough of the fish to order more of the same. You have rescued that one fish, but you have perpetuated the cycle.

I'm not passing moral judgement on anything, but let's all use some logic and reason, instead of rationalizations and emotions, when we are making these decisions.