Love For Animals

I remember it like it was yesterday. I was around 16 years old, and my friends and I would go to Marine World (renamed Six Flags Discovery Kingdom) during the summer. We saw a couple of scattered people standing near the entrance of the parking lot. They had signs and they were shouting. They were protesters, and they were protesting against keeping marine mammals in captivity. My friends started commenting about the protesters, saying, “They’re stupid. What the hell are they doing?” We just didn’t understand why they were making a big fuss because being the young kids we were, we grew up knowing these places to be popular family places with cute shows involving highly-trained animals. We naturally believed that if it existed and was legal, it can’t be seriously bad like these protesters were making it out to be. However, when I saw them, it caught my attention…but we drove past them and forgot about it all in an instant.

Specifically speaking of marine mammals being held in captivity at theme parks (e.g. SeaWorld or Discovery Kingdom), why do we do it? Primarily for entertainment. Research, while also using them as entertainment? Is that really all we have to say for taking these beautiful wild mammals from their vast home — the oceans that stretch out into an infinite horizon. They have about 75% of this world as their own, and they’re taken away from all of that and dumped into a small chlorine pool. In the wild, they travel long distances all the time in big “family” groups. They’re not meant to be stuck in the confinements of a “puddle.”

Marine mammals, along with many other animals, are being captured and exploited so we can sit in awe and clap in amusement. We know that dolphins will even gladly come up to ships or swim alongside random boats, even the capture boats. They don’t know, and they become an easy capture. The captivity of marine mammals is also considered by many to have an adverse effect on their lifespan. This is a life we’re giving these intelligent creatures. If they could make the choice, honestly don’t you think they’d choose the wild instead? It probably won’t seem like a big deal to some people. I can only speak for myself when I say that when everything is said and done, it just feels wrong.

I’ve never eaten at a sushi restaurant in Japan before. I haven’t even been to too many sushi restaurants where I live, but one thing is for sure — it’s probably rare for someone to see a live fish gasping for oxygen, i.e. dissolved oxygen, while it has skewers pierced through its body as pieces of its own body lay on top of it. It’s been said that the Japanese like their fish very fresh and raw. Well, this preference is very much reflected in their cuisine.

Of course, the preference to eat something that is alive or cook a live crayfish on a sizzling grill is a practice seen as being very normal in Japan and many other countries as well. They like their seafood really fresh, and apparently to some people, a couple of seconds or minutes make a whole lot of difference in freshness. I would think that in some Asian cultures, particularly the Japanese, they’ve witnessed the live cooking/eating practices since they were young. It’s very normal to them, but it’s such a culture clash when you’re not used to seeing people eat things while they’re still alive. It almost seems cruel. Yet, I know that the ethical belief that it’s cruel runs mostly off of the fact that it’s a cultural difference, which explains why I’m more apt to thinking it’s disgusting and morally gross.

So far, scientists do not know for sure whether fish experience pain in the same way as a chicken, cow, or human feels pain. Obviously fish have nerves, but some scientists believe they may lack a specific part of the brain that senses pain. On the other hand, there are some scientists that believe fish are very capable of feeling pain in the same way as any other animal would. If the latter is true, I can’t even imagine the torture that they have to endure as they’re slowly eaten alive while suffocating and being picked at by people who are taking their sweet time.