Ethical Euthanasia

[huma-huma]

listen i just think people should actually care about things that are wrong and if they don't i try to change there mind. these things should be understood and you should feel sorry for doing something cruel and accept it if you continue. why do people go to prison? they killed someone and did something wrong and jail makes them think about why they are in there constantly and stress them for doing something cruel. again, unless they are the kind of person who doea it without remorse. if you had a friend who killed someone while driving and they were at fault and didn't feel bad, would you stay friends with them? whats to say humans should control everything on earth without feeling guilty about it because they are knowledgable and feel feelings. are you a person who eats meat but doesn't feel bad about slaughter houses and eating steak but thinks its weird and sad that cats and dogs get eaten in other parts of the world. people who believe in buddhism either don't eat meat because they don't believe in any kind of killing or they eat meat that someone else killed amd feel for the animal. i take for instance a scene of avatar. the girl shoots a dog with the bow to save the guy, but she feels bad for it and cries. things have to be done sometimes, but if more people cared and actually tried to make things better on every living creature this world would be a much better place. these posts are now completely off topic but i have my opinions and i wont be rude about them but i will stand by them. imo if a breeder culls what truly need to be culled and puts it to good use, like hukit using cull as fertilizer or bob mccoy feeding his angels, rather than just tossing it without thinking twice because they won't sell then its OK. but too many people raise fry to ages where they won't get eaten and just kill them unethically it is wrong

ive dealt with this culling issue a lot in my research with Siberian Huskies and their breeding habits over the years. I can say that I am ok with culling offspring to preserve the integrity of its breed, or to optimize its strengths. im also ok with eating meat and feeding feeder fish to predatory fish. what im not ok with is the needless killing of fish for whatever reason. I think that we are both in agreeance and my comment wasn't meant to stand against you or point a finger at you. I can agree 100% that we as humans need to preserve this Earth.

 

[Lynx99]

What a depressing thread to have read.

 

[aquandrew]

What a depressing thread to have read.

it is depressing but if more people know what it takes to have fish instead of buying them first and learning after, we will have more people who know what its going to take and are willing to do it rather than the people who buy them without knowing and find out its more work than they care to do. the OP shouldn't have to kill something he loves because of other peoples actions. something perfectly healthy but won't be for long without a proper home. at least people, like the OP who took in the fish, care enough to put them down rather than have them too many crammed in a tank and the water parameters to go downhill causing them to die a much slower and painful death which would most likely put more stress on the OP than euthanizing too. go tell people what it takes to handle an aquarium and you will help this hobby before they harm/kill fish and give up before they do research and wonder why they just killed 20 fish they put in a new tank. if we don't discuss things like this people won't know how much they happen and they won't try as hard or at all to stop it. its not even like its too much work but for some reason people think its too much to do water changes once a week or feed your fish appropriately but thats most of your aquarium maintenance right there. admittedly the hardest part is cycling and new aquarium owners have no idea what BB is or the nitrogen cycle. my red devil was kept in a tank that only had top offs for a whole year. no water changes and the water was disgusting. it was sad to see it living in that tank, when my sister bought the tank, and the guy offered to kill it so i told him i would take it. its just sad how people can keep a beautiful fish with an awesome personality for five years and just offer to kill it. hey lets just be glad most people jump in to freshwater and not salt first

 

[Wy Renegade]

ive dealt with this culling issue a lot in my research with Siberian Huskies and their breeding habits over the years. I can say that I am ok with culling offspring to preserve the integrity of its breed, or to optimize its strengths. im also ok with eating meat and feeding feeder fish to predatory fish. what im not ok with is the needless killing of fish for whatever reason. I think that we are both in agreeance and my comment wasn't meant to stand against you or point a finger at you. I can agree 100% that we as humans need to preserve this Earth.

You have a really double-sided point of view you know that right? It is ok in one case, but not another? I'm ok with putting down a perfectly healthy animal because I'm maintaining the integrity of a breed, but not not to insure that it doesn't suffer? Lets try a scenerio that maybe fits the bill a bit closer.

Here in Wyoming, we have a population of wild horses on public land. This population of wild horses has to be managed in order to insure they don't destroy their environment and end up starving to death. So every year, the government rounds up the wild horses and tries to adopt out as many as they can to reach their desired population number. However, the bottom line is that for many years now, they haven't been able to adopt enough of them out to hit thier quota. So what did they do? For years, they loaded the left-over healthy animals along with any of the injured animals into truckes and took them up to Monatana to the dog food mills. Then bleeding hearts shut down the dog food mills because we were being unethical by turning perfectly healthy horses into dog food. So now what do you suppose we are doing with the left over healthy horses? I'll leave it at that, but I can tell you for a fact, they aren't being turned loose back onto the public lands. Is what we are doing any more ethical then turning them into dog food? Probably not, but at least previously they served a purpose. What purpose are they serving now? What do you think a breeder does with unwanted puppies when they can't sell them or find a home for them? If they are in it for the money, they have them put down in order to be able to claim them for a loss. By supporting any purebreed animal breeder you are supporting practices that are the same as or far more unethical that what you are speaking out against here.

 

[Lynx99]

it is depressing but if more people know what it takes to have fish instead of buying them first and learning after, we will have more people who know what its going to take and are willing to do it rather than the people who buy them without knowing and find out its more work than they care to do. the OP shouldn't have to kill something he loves because of other peoples actions. something perfectly healthy but won't be for long without a proper home. at least people, like the OP who took in the fish, care enough to put them down rather than have them too many crammed in a tank and the water parameters to go downhill causing them to die a much slower and painful death which would most likely put more stress on the OP than euthanizing too. go tell people what it takes to handle an aquarium and you will help this hobby before they harm/kill fish and give up before they do research and wonder why they just killed 20 fish they put in a new tank. if we don't discuss things like this people won't know how much they happen and they won't try as hard or at all to stop it. its not even like its too much work but for some reason people think its too much to do water changes once a week or feed your fish appropriately but thats most of your aquarium maintenance right there. admittedly the hardest part is cycling and new aquarium owners have no idea what BB is or the nitrogen cycle. my red devil was kept in a tank that only had top offs for a whole year. no water changes and the water was disgusting. it was sad to see it living in that tank, when my sister bought the tank, and the guy offered to kill it so i told him i would take it. its just sad how people can keep a beautiful fish with an awesome personality for five years and just offer to kill it. hey lets just be glad most people jump in to freshwater and not salt first

All valid point but totally off topic. The OP is putting down perfectly healthy fish as he cant keep them anymore.

 

[Fishlover3578]

I'm almost wishing my dad would give up on fis and sell his tank like my mom did ... He bought a doze. It more fish and then did not change his WC schedule at all ... His fish started to die and still didnt do anything ... Bagh tested his tank and nitrate was at 180! I'm making him do 50% WC til its down to a good level he has 7 living fis left and before he bought more fish he had like 15

 

[Hobgob]

I think people are getting jumping around here. Culling is something that has to be done. I understand culling because of bad colours, deformities or illnesses is different the. A fish the op took in. But now everyone is saying this and that is wrong. Well culling for colours is needed! If a fish is suppose to be a certain colour and it comes out different thats classified as a deformity. As far as beta fish go. If one isn't flashy the breeder won't put it down. It goes to the store. The breeder keeps the flashy ones for more breeding. Selectively breeding that colour to another beta and seeing if it's offspring will show the same traits. Note this isn't always from inbreeding. Deformities just happen. Trust me. I've had a male and female bnp that were not family and all the offaprings came out with turned up fins and huge lumps on their heads. That was bad genetics.

Breeding fish is important. Do you know how many species would be extinct if people didn't repopulate or reintroduce animals.

Basically I'm gonna make a long story short.
Culling or euthAnizing needs to been done to control populations whether it be deer, horses, coyotes, or in this case fish.

And huma. You say this op shouldn't take in fish if he can't deal with them and that as owners it our responsibility to care for them best as possible and that we ahould only cull deformed fiah. Well he said he tried to find good homes for them and he probably still is trying, he is caring for them by rescuing them from who knows what type of fiahkeeper trying to give them a better life. Now for the culling of only sick fish. If he doesn't have a big enough tank they will become sick and have something that will make there life awful. So is it ok to wait until the fish suffers from its poor conditions then cull it?

 

[Fishlover3578]

Wish you lived nearby I would take some what would shipping be and what kind fish do you have

 

[Delapool]

Sounds like the OP is doing all possible and in the end I would agree with fish being put down basically in their situation. I really, really don't like it and don't think fish maintenance is that much a week. I have friends who are surprised to find they spend more time on their pool then I do on the tank.

 

[huma-huma]

my view isn't double-sided one bit. culling dog puppies to maintain strong healthy genes is a world apart from simply killing fish because you don't have the space, and as you brought up the situation of the horses, I don't really buy into situations as that, only because theres really no valid proof to support what people claim in those situations but I still don't feel that killing healthy fish is ok at all

 

[The Trooper]

The way i see this is as follows...

Someone is bored of the fish and therefore doesn't want them - fish may end up neglected/flushed alive or any number of horrific ways to go, they could be re homed elsewhere - this person may be a great Aquariast or may not be. That is a gamble.

The OP is taking it upon himself to stop the risk and is trying to rehome as many of these as possible to suitable homes or keep them himself, which is great.

However OP can only have so many fish and as such the whole problem starts again, i would much rather have a fish humanely and quickly killed than tortured (intentionally or not) to death.

I agree with the OP.

What you could do is throw them all into a 10g tank and just let them live like that, if ofcourse you think that's a better alternative?

I do not think so, Quick death Vs slow or painful, there can be only one winner, even when it comes to humans.

 

[jetajockey]

Its similar in that both are unwanted. You don't have to euthanize a runt to maintain strong genes, you just have to remove it from the breeding gene pool. Yet most breeders will put a runt down if they cant find it a home (assuming they even try).
So what would make one situation acceptable and the other not.

 

[huma-huma]

The way i see this is as follows...

Someone is bored of the fish and therefore doesn't want them - fish may end up neglected/flushed alive or any number of horrific ways to go, they could be re homed elsewhere - this person may be a great Aquariast or may not be. That is a gamble.

The OP is taking it upon himself to stop the risk and is trying to rehome as many of these as possible to suitable homes or keep them himself, which is great.

However OP can only have so many fish and as such the whole problem starts again, i would much rather have a fish humanely and quickly killed than tortured (intentionally or not) to death.


I agree with the OP.

What you could do is throw them all into a 10g tank and just let them live like that, if ofcourse you think that's a better alternative?

I do not think so, Quick death Vs slow or painful, there can be only one winner, even when it comes to humans.

that's exactly the thought process that we as responsible hobbyists should be trying to eliminate. and plus I don't think we should just say "well its prob gonna have a horrid life anyways, mineaswell kill it now."

 

[Hobgob]

but I still don't feel that killing healthy fish is ok at all

so like I said, is it ok for us to wait for the fish to get stunted and then kill it? Its sick and now healthy now

 

[Wy Renegade]

my view isn't double-sided one bit. culling dog puppies to maintain strong healthy genes is a world apart from simply killing fish because you don't have the space, and as you brought up the situation of the horses, I don't really buy into situations as that, only because theres really no valid proof to support what people claim in those situations but I still don't feel that killing healthy fish is ok at all

I have to respectfully disagree with you here, mainly because I happen to know a good bit about Siberian husky genes. If a breeder is truly interested in maintaining strong healthy genes in dogs, they wouldn't be breeding Siberian huskies in the first place (or most other dog breeds for that matter), as the vast majority of Show Siberian bloodlines can be traced back to just three male dogs. They (and other breeds) have become so inbreed that genetic disorders (thankfully rare in the past) are starting to show up even in Siberians. Further, you are ignoring the fact that many breeders have puppies put down not only because they are runts or because some gentic disorder or deformity shows up, but also because they were a cross between two dogs they didn't want to breed, because they can't find a potential buyer and they don't have the space to keep them, and because they can't find buyers fast enough and the puppies are simply getting too old to sell. All these are fairly common practices in the world of dog or any other purebred animal breeding.

As for the situation with wild horses in this country, you can buy in or not, it doesn't change what is happening. It also isn't occurring just in Wyoming. Wild horses and ponies all over the nation including on the east coast are in the same situation. Scientists have spent millions of government dollars on attempting to develop a nonfertility drug that can be induced by tranquilizer darts and lasts for an extended period. Do a little research online and you'll learn all kinds of things.

Personally, I'm really not in favor of putting down perfectly healthy animals either, but if it a choice between that or letting them suffer, I'm all for putting them down in as humane a way as possible.

 

[HUKIT]

Personally, I'm really in favor of putting down perfectly healthy animals.

Is that a typo or are you really in favor of that?

This thread has gotten so far off the path of the original question, now we are bringing in dogs and horses? I'm sorry but there is a HUGE difference between putting down mammals over fish...

 

[Wy Renegade]

Is that a typo or are you really in favor of that?

This thread has gotten so far off the path of the original question, now we are bringing in dogs and horses? I'm sorry but there is a HUGE difference between putting down mammals over fish...

Thanks for catching that LOL - fixed. I guess it depends on your point of view, I personally don't see much difference between the two ~ they are all animals, but I know that lots of people do. I do recognize the need to maintain genetics, populations, etc. doesn't mean I always agree with how that task is accomplished. I think that if you talked to the actual breeders of these animals, you wouldn't find much difference between their attitude and the one that you expressed.

 

[Cactuspixie]

Yeah, its a topic no one really wants to talk about it. Sadly, I'm having a special case of it here. So I have a hobby aquarium business going on. Nothing fancy- I'll setup, install & maintain aquariums for people. What I've been getting recently however, is an influx of people emailing me asking if I can take their fish for them, as they've lost interest in fish-keeping or they're moving, etc. Not wanting to see a fish neglected, I've been saying yes, and petting these fish into my spare tanks. But now I have a problem: I have too many of these fish, and I can't seem to get rid of them. I can't sell them because nobody is interested in buying them. I've been trying to get rid of them by putting them into the tanks I setup and install, but at this rate, I'll be forever trying to get rid of them. And that's where the topic of euthanasia comes into play. Now, granted, there's nothing ethical about euthanizing a perfectly healthy fish, and I agree with that. But what about my bottom line? All told- I don't depend on my hobby business, but at the same time, I do have a couple thousand sunk into it. Is it ethical to euthanize these healthy fish to protect my bottom line?

You yourself said it is unethical to euthanize healthy fish. That eliminates any and all reasons for doing so. This is why you are torn. You need to solve that dilemma for yourself, as the answer lies in your own values.
We all have different values, so you will get conflicting points of view in response to your question.
I am vegan, so my values are likely to be seen as more extreme than the norm.
Euthanizing a healthy fish is something i personally would struggle with, though I think a quick and painless death via Clive oil is infinitely preferable to a miserable existence in cramped and/or toxic conditions, or being torn apart when fed to other fish.

I don't like the idea that people can take the easy way out by dumping their unwanted pets/fish. They are happy for someone else to deal with nasty side of things while they go out and buy more ill-fated pets/fish. I would rather they took responsibility and euthanized their fish themselves. They might even discover that they'd rather keep it than kill it to get a prettier fish.

I guess my values are less extreme than yours lol.
I just don't think that death is the worst thing that happens to living things.

On a practical note:
Are there no fish/pet shops around that these people could take their fish to? Perhaps the place they bought them from?

 

[DragonFish71]

I'm not sure where the problem is.

euthanasia: quick, painless death
vs
murder: slow, torturous death in a too small tank, being tended by a moron or death in a dumpster

If you can't find a good home for the fish, and can't keep them yourself, what are your options? Are you going to throw it in a dumpster or use clove oil?

Seriously people, get a grip.

 

[bud29]

I'm not sure where the problem is.

euthanasia: quick, painless death
vs
murder: slow, torturous death in a too small tank, being tended by a moron or death in a dumpster

If you can't find a good home for the fish, and can't keep them yourself, what are your options? Are you going to throw it in a dumpster or use clove oil?

Seriously people, get a grip.

I agree. Euthanizing fish would by no means be my first choice - however if it comes down to it, euthanasia would be better than the alternative.