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Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
31–40 of 91 posts
Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#32I'm surprised to see so many comments solely about how aquariums/zoos are cruel and feeling sorry for this particular fish, when it's a species that is regularly hunted. I wouldn't want to be locked in a cage/tank either, but by ending up in a well run aquarium this sunfish is doing better than 99.999% of sunfish that have encountered humans. This isn't a screed against eating fish or meat; I eat both. There are a lo…
The issue is about whether the animal is forced to endure pain, not weather we eat it or not. The same is true for how we keep the animals we eat, and why people are rightfully upset about how some cows and chickens and the like are kept during their short lives before slaughter. Essentially, having the animal be free before we catch and immediately and hopefully quickly kill it for food is fine. Keeping it in a zoo…
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Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#33I'm surprised to see so many comments solely about how aquariums/zoos are cruel and feeling sorry for this particular fish, when it's a species that is regularly hunted. I wouldn't want to be locked in a cage/tank either, but by ending up in a well run aquarium this sunfish is doing better than 99.999% of sunfish that have encountered humans. This isn't a screed against eating fish or meat; I eat both. There are a lo…
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Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#34I'm surprised to see so many comments solely about how aquariums/zoos are cruel and feeling sorry for this particular fish, when it's a species that is regularly hunted. I wouldn't want to be locked in a cage/tank either, but by ending up in a well run aquarium this sunfish is doing better than 99.999% of sunfish that have encountered humans. This isn't a screed against eating fish or meat; I eat both. There are a lo…
The internet in general finds the black in the rainbow, Hacker News is typically better in quality of argument as it tends to attract a more intellectual crowd, but the overall tendency is the same. Additionally, most of us are taught "hurting things is bad" as children and many adults have a hard time reconciling that we have to intentionally hurt at least some living things to live, hurt an even greater amount of l…
> is typically better in quality of argument as it tends to attract a more intellectual crowd
On behalf of the more intellectual crowd, I'm obliged to devastatingly elucidate that we're (quite singularly) more intrinsically adept at forcefully projecting ex post facto rationalizations upon our--invariably and universally--emotional decision-making processes whilst obfuscating the same under an avalanche of loquacious hifalutinisms.
Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#35I’ve encountered a couple of these Sunfish (“Mola mola”) in the wild off the coast of Southern California. They’re absolutely incredible to see in person and massive! While it seemed to enjoy our presence we made sure not to get too close or they might mistake your boat for a rock and try to flop on board, which is the only way they’ve ever killed a human. I’ve read they move to warmer waters as they age and the ones…
The ones I've seen get scared pretty easily, and when scared will rocket off awfully fast.
Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#36Is it loneliness, or stimulus deprivation? The tank looks barren in the photo.
They live in the middle of big oceans. Whenever I've found one in the wild, there is nothing nearby, so I imagine an empty tank is the best way to replicate that.
Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#37These animals yearn for their mates. I understand the conservation aspect of aquariums and all the good things that come out of it (research, etc) but it still makes me a bit sad when I read things like this.
I agree with you. The older I get, the less and less tolerant I become of the concept of zoos and aquariums.
Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#38I wish I was that sunfish.
Want me to print you some friends? :)
Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#39These animals yearn for their mates. I understand the conservation aspect of aquariums and all the good things that come out of it (research, etc) but it still makes me a bit sad when I read things like this.
I agree with you. The older I get, the less and less tolerant I become of the concept of zoos and aquariums.
The better ones take really good care of the animals within.
And I think they serve an important and not-irreplaceable purpose - exposure. They help show ordinary people, many of whom live in cities with no exposure to real nature, just what out there is worth protecting. I think it helps build public support for things like reducing waste, better fishing and hunting practices, the importance of parks and preserves, wildlife crossings, etc.
Sure, you can see them on your phone. But the result is completely different than seeing them with your own eyes.
Re: Lonely sunfish in Japan gets cardboard human friends
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Being cared for by conscientious humans, providing enrichment and variety, can be better than living in the wild. For any animal, living in the wild, life span tends to be short, and life tends to be brutal. Prey animals are hunted, and they scrounge for food; finding a steady, reliable, nutritious, and tasty source of food in the wild is vanishingly rare. Dealing with parasites, illness, injury, predation, and all t…
I was commenting to my wife the other day... it seems to me that there are very few wild animals that just die from being too old. Not an expert, but it seems to me that most animals in the wild live until they are brutally ripped apart and eaten alive by another animal, and it's only a matter of time -- very rarely reaching an age old enough to just die.
Very few other animals put energy (either directly or through abstractions like "money", "welfare", and "centralized monopolies on the legitimate use of violence") into sustaining members of the species/group that can no longer defend and feed themselves.
Humans in the developed world do this so well that very few of them are even required to defend and feed themselves without these abstractions.