That is one of the most ****ed up things I've heard of in a while, well since the 13 year old father at least.
tattooing fish is wrong. like that tatoo is probably covering 10to20% of its body and fish are so fragile as it is. if tattooing a fish with a needle is scaled up its probably the equivilant of a person being tattooed with a shovel, sound pleasant?
I just can't see the point in tattooing fish. It looks crap, and fish come in a LOT of different colors naturally anyway.
I seriously think this is disgusting. It's pointless, ruins the natural beauty of nature, and is bloody cruel. I guess you could argue that this is insignificant, and sure, there are bigger issues in the world. Lucky that not everybody views everything like that, imagine how bad the world would be then, in comparison to it now...
I don't think my argument is flawed. One is a forced choice, while the other is not. Both of the options I presented (foot binding and breast augmentation) are purely cosmetic, culturally driven trends, and have very serious detrimental health effects. Tattooing fish and selective breeding (we'll say in dogs just for argument sake) are two entirely different subjects, with the same underlying target: ascetic modification of said animal. Fish do not have a choice in what visual effect we apply to them (even if it kills them). Dogs however do have a choice in if they want to copulate with another dog. They obviously do not fully comprehend the consequences of their actions towards the progression of the species, but we are not exactly taking a gun to their head to do it either. Neither of these things are truly "right", but you're not viewing this through shades of gray, but simply slagging off everything not specifically "natural" as though it were the devil's spawn incarnate. The ascetic modification of animals through breeding programs is not the same thing as forcing a notable detrimental treatment onto an animal simply for our amusement or to make it look better.
Nope; there is such a thing as artificial insemination, or do you think that farm animals actually get put together in a stable, with some candles and a bit of Barry White playing in the background? I think that you are saying that there are gradations in which we impose our aesthetics (or functionality) onto an animal (and hence, the badness of it): that selective breeding is not as bad as tattooing a fish for instance. I'm saying that basically it is pretty much the same thing. We brand animals to indicate ownership, we breed them to the point of deformation because we think it looks cute, and we intensively farm them in deplorable conditions so we can eat cheap meat. At no point does an animal go: "hey, I want a a squashed nose through which I can hardly breathe and stubby legs that make it an effort to walk", "hey, I want to be so big that my heart gives out early", "hey, I want no fur to keep my body temperature within nominal limits" "hey, I want a bigger rump so that I can barely move or can't give birth without a caesarian", "hey, I want my balls cut off" or "hey, I want to be branded with a hot iron".
I know all about artificial insemination, but 90% of the breeds of dogs we have currently were bread well before AI became the accepted norm (or easy/cheap). So at some point in time there was copulation happening, candles and Barry White notwithstanding. Your second point however is precisely what I am saying: is it worse to cause an animal to come to harm before (selective breeding leading to deformation) or after (mutilation) it is born? In selective breeding, the animal knows no different, and is entirely unaware that it should ever be anything different. It is happy the way it is. With aesthetic modifications to an existing creature that has already stabilized it's own world-view, it can see the difference, and feels the trauma inflicted upon it. They're both wrong, but to what degree? And which is worse? Obviously a dog would never think any of those things; that's just being silly for the sake of it.
Why would anybody tattoo a fish!? While I understand eating animals, hurting them for cosmetics looks is just silly! If it doesn't hurt them then fine, no harm (except to the now-pink bulldogs pride...), but it just seems like such a waste of time and money.
Dogs, like most animals, will shag almost anything. Even your leg. But is that valid and informed consent? Are you seriously suggesting that a fish has a world view? Animals have a basic self-awareness. As such they do experience pain and suffering as such --whether it is through selective breeding or through a tattoo gun. It makes a point: valid and informed consent. Humans going for elective (the clue is in the name) cosmetic surgery choose to do so. Animals don't choose to be selectively bred or tattooed. How can they? They don't understand the concept. But they do have an experience of pain and discomfort, whatever the cause.
OK then From what I read, tattooing fish can be done (supposedly) painlessly with fricken lasers (an operation possibly carried out by highly trained sharks, although I am unsure of this). Is all this **** cruel and unnatural? Of course it is. But so is hooking a fish out of the water by it's mouth and taking a smug photo of you and the fish and either chucking it back or letting it die slowly, cutting it's head off and putting it in a bap. So some gimp wants a fish in the colours of his favourite football team? As far a cruelty is concerned, we have ('cuse the pun) bigger fish to fry. Also, I hear that this man was pinned down by several not-so-coy carp while scuba diving in his fish pond and forcibly tattooed as graphically illustrated below. place pencil here---------------------^
