Alright, so a little back-story: I work at a fish shop (obviously), and today with my order, I happened to get two strange bags addressed to two of the managers (both women who happened to work previously with the owner of the supplier I order from). Yes, you are seeing a tetra with the image of a stylized heart tattooed into the side of him. The basic process of tattooing fish involves a needle filled with a rather persistent stain that they gingerly inject just below the skin of the fish. The other way they do this is literally let the fish live in a giant bath of stained water, until it soaks into every part of them (including their internal organs). What is your opinion? Is it right to do something like this to an animal that cannot fight back (and is in-fact born into captivity)? Or is it wrong to drastically shorten the expected life-span, and accept the high mortality rate of these fish due to the dying process? Oh, and have a picture of a frog. (got him in the same shipment)
I am sickened by people doing this, though the local shop orders them in all the time. "Jellybean" parrots, "fruit tetras", etc-it's appalling. On a side note, got any good plecos?
First day on the job I told those in charge that we will no longer be carrying any artificially dyed, or significantly modified fish, otherwise I wouldn't be staying. Worked rather well, but these two fish coming in kind of has me in a tiffy. Lets see: spotted sail-fin plecs, clown plecs, royal plecs, farlowella cats, whip-tail cats, oto's, gold-nugget plec, rubber plecs, bussy-nose plecs, and I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple. Still new to this store, so I'm slowly rebuilding the fish section (in reputation, and quality), so I'm holding off on getting in the good ones. Though the gold-nugget is about 1.5' long, and I'm asking $400 for him (still a bit much, but my supplier is way over priced).
oh hai i like your avatar. Anyways, I believe that fish shouldn't be tattooed are artificially dyed. When I was younger I would get 'Painted Glass" fish, that were clear and has a stripe of color on top. They kept dying even though the aquarium was fine. I went online only to find that they were injected with paint, and die a few weeks afterward. I told my local pet shop that I was appalled that they would carry such animals, but it seemed that they weren't any wiser about it than I was. I believe they had a talking to their supplier about why they would give them fish that would die within the two week death policy.
My personal plecs are a clown, a foot-long P. Gibbiceps (leopard sailfin), and an unclassed hypostomus (can't get an L-number), though I've had an L347, a pair of snow king (P. Anistsi, true snow kings) and a white spot bulldog as well. My other cats are a full-grown spotted raphael, two upside down cats, a cuckoo cat, and a quartet of salt and papper cories. I've three tanks, two 20 gallon and a 65, the 65 is a devoted blackwater biotope, the 20s are African swamp and Asian coldwater. I still have other fish besides these, but these are my faves.
it is sick to do that to a fish... but considering the amount of fish that die and suffer every day from our direct and indirect actions.... i think it makes this tattooed fish problem insignificant.
I understand your stand on the fish but I have to say that if you had said that when you started working for me you'd have been working out of the door three minutes later
Well, considering they begged me to work there, allowed me to set my own schedule, wage, and dictate how things were going to change, and in the past month not only have sales climbed, but losses (of livestock) have gone down to the point of almost nothing (1-2 per day, rather than 20-30), I think you would have a rather different stance on matters. In any other situation I would have agreed (to a certain degree) with you, but always think about the extenuating circumstances.
And how is this any more wrong then breeding animals for pets, and then keeping them in confined spaces for your enjoyment? Why is taking the next step of tattooing them more wrong? I would think that once you have taken the first horrid step, that then next is only inevitable. We tattoo horses, dogs, cats and rabbits. So why not fish?
What is the mortality rate for horses who have been tattooed? How about rabbits? Does the act drastically shorten their life-span? As well, saying that it is fine in comparison because we breed various animals for looks or temperament would be like saying that forcing young women to bind their feet is ok because we as adults pay for optional surgery for such things like breast augmentation. One != the other.
Although I admire your principled stance on this (and do agree), your argument here is a little bit flawed. Cosmetic surgery is elective: women choose to have their breasts enlarged (for a given value of "choose", anyway). Young women did not chose to have their feet bound any more than they choose female circumcision --there's much more cultural pressure. So bad comparison, I'm afraid. A lot of selective breeding and "modification" of pets and lifestock does actually shorten their lifespan and endanger their health and functioning. Great Danes live shorter because their hearts can't keep up with their big bodies. St. Bernards and Bulldogs get arthritis. Pickenees (Pugs) have trouble breathing through their squashed noses and their bulging eyes are prone to nasty infections, damage and in extreme cases, dislocating from their eye sockets. Cows have increasing trouble giving birth through our selective breeding interventions. I don't have to go into how we treat battery hens. Our tuna is not all that dolphin friendly --and those are animals that get scarily close to human intelligence. We're crap towards animals, and we're schizoid. We treat some atrociously because we eat them, and mutilate others in our callous, god-like playing with them. We lavish excessive affection on others still while we let our fellow humans rot. Don't expect it to make sense. We're just ****ed up in all our relationships.
Or cut off Animals balls, or force feed Goose, or take away Children from their Parents who have done nothing wrong (This Morning was an example). But it still happens.
Tattin a fish is a little extreme. My dog has a tattoo on her inner thigh with her registration number. This happened way before RFID chips, but this also serves a better function than a heart tattoo.
I once bought some colored white skirt tetras like the one with the heart on it. After one of the green ones I got faded to white I did some research and found out that they dye them. I will never buy a colored one again. People are so messed up.
That is a little flawed in that cosmetic augmentation to things like animals is purely for human sensibilities i.e. its not like they think "Holy **** someone put a heart on me!" . As long as the animals are not subject to undue pain then I don't see the huge problem with nut jobs tattooing on simplistic animals, its really only our own sensibilities that are affected.
