Do fish feel pain? We may never know (5/11/2003)

First, U.S. scientist James D. Rose weighed in with the opinion they don't. The University of Wyoming professor reported in "Reviews of Fisheries Science'' that fish lack the nerve for it, so to speak.

Specifically, Rose said, the primitive brains of fish never developed the areas of the cerebral cortex that enable higher vertebrates to experience pain. Fish respond to stimulus all right, he said, but there is a distinct difference between this response and feeling pain.

"Pain is predicated on awareness, " Rose said. "The key issue is the distinction between nociception and pain. A person who is anesthetized in an operating theatre will still respond physically to an external stimulus, but he or she will not feel pain. Anyone who has seen a chicken with its head cut off will know that, while its body can respond to stimuli, it cannot be feeling pain."

Not so, the august British Royal Society subsequently proclaimed.

The society published a report saying that when bee venom or acetic acid is injected into the lips of fish, they exhibit a "rocking motion'' that appears to indicate they're in pain.

Well, actually, the Society didn't stop at this assumption. It went on to say these observations prove fish do indeed feel pain.

This is some pretty fishy science.

Either that or the British Royal Society counts a talking fish among its members. Anything short of that would amount to the worst of supposition, given the highly subjective nature of pain.

And it is subjective.

Among humans, who can verbalize their opinions, perceptions vary greatly. Some cry when poked with a pin. Others can stab all sorts of pins and needles into all parts of their bodies and apparently not feel much.

What is painful to one can even prove pleasurable to another. One might find a one-mile run anguishing while another will go on a 10-mile run for fun.

None of which, unfortunately, has caused any of the pontificators to pause before proclaiming the agony of the poor fish.

Keith Olbermann of cable television's MSNBC went so far as to declare that the Royal Society's fish "reacted in such a way as to express that it really, really hurt. We're not talking about the kind of pain a fish might feel if he lost his girlfriend to a better-looking mackerel. This is actual physical pain from that hook stuck in his lip ... animal-rights groups are saying that findings are confirmation not only that fishes hate to get stung by bees, but also proof of what they have long argued -- that the sport of fishing itself amounts to torture.

"I'm not a fisherman, nor do I belong to PETA, but it would seem this study needs to be taken seriously. A PETA spokesman said, ‘We would encourage anglers to lay down their rods.' In response, Charles Jardine, the director of a pro-angling group called Gone Fishing, says it's all supposition, ‘until we have proper, bona fide evidence.'

"Mr. Jardine, try jamming one of your fish hooks in your lip and see how bona fide that feels."

Now, I don't want to call Olbermann an idiot. I usually try to avoid such name calling because it detracts from the discussion of issues. But Olbermann is an idiot.

Consider, for just a minute, that fish live in an environment totally different from ours. Within that environment, many fish prey upon other fish. Many of the prey fish have dorsal fins with spines. If you've handled many fish, you might have noticed these spines are pointy. They will stick you.

Sculpins, what many anglers know in their marine form as Irish Lords, are among fish with obnoxious spines. These fish invariably stick you when you pick them up. For this reason, one of the freshwater versions is known by the common name, prickly sculpin.

This and other sculpins, however, are regularly eaten by other fish.

It is reasonable to assume these fish are accustomed to getting stuck in the mouth with most every meal. Now how much difference can there be between the stick from a pointy spine and that from a sharp hook? The hook may well cause the fish no more "pain'' than the spine of the dorsal fin or the hypodermic needle stuck in the rump of my favorite Labrador, for that matter. He doesn't even notice being stuck by that needle.

Why? Because his sense of pain is totally different from yours and mine, and he's a fellow mammal. Fish, as Rose points out, are way down the food chain -- oops, sorry -- evolutionary ladder in terms of the development of their neurological systems. They probably feel even less than the dog.

But the reality remains that we will never know. Debating whether fish do or don't feel pain is a pointless exercise, because there's really no objective way to prove the case either way.

So let's just wait until they tell us. The day a fish cries out "hey, that hurt'' will be the day I know it felt pain. Until then, I'll just continue to consider fish something tasty to toss on the barbecue.

Daily News Outdoor editor Craig Medred can be reached at cmedred@adn.com.