Stop Asphyxiating and Cutting Apart Fish to Death

Target: Rupert Howes, CEO of Marine Stewardship Council

Goal: Cease inhumane methods used to end lives of fish.

A leading organization is finally acknowledging what animal welfare advocates have known for years: marine life like fish can feel and are sentient. This conclusion has led the Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) to at last revise its standards for farmed seafood to reflect a more humane approach. Now, one of the world’s biggest fishery operations needs to get on board.

The ASC sets guidelines for supermarket fish sold in the United Kingdom (UK). Under new rules, in order to carry the ASC label, fish cannot be killed without first being stunned so that they do not feel pain. With current standards, captured fish often die by asphyxiation because they cannot breathe once they are removed from the water. Many times, they are even eviscerated while still alive, which exponentially increases their levels of pain and torture.

The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which certifies wild fisheries, is now being called upon to revise its own standards to eliminate inhumane fish deaths. Sign the petition below to echo these calls for needed reform.

PETITION LETTER:

Dear Mr. Howes,

“Fish are sentient beings, able to feel and experience pain, stress and anxiety. Handling operations have the potential to inflict suffering.” This very clear guidance came from the Aquaculture Stewardship Council and echoes statements made by the European Commission over a decade ago. Despite the evidence, the Marine Stewardship Council continues to abide by outdated standards and practices that dismiss the torture inflicted on these living beings.

Asphyxiation, evisceration, and salt baths are all widespread methods of death that are rampant among the fisheries you are supposed to guide. At the very least, requiring that these animals be stunned before death would lessen their suffering and acknowledge their sentience. Please follow the ASC’s lead and champion a humane, torture-free approach to fishing.

Sincerely,

[Your Name Here]

Photo Credit: Cottonbro


34 Comments

  1. I knew this as a child when watching the fish my grandfather caught. He wasn’t deliberately cruel but I watched and thought about how they struggled to live.
    The world now understands that yes they want to live or at least die as painlessly as Possible. Please make it happen.

  2. As a fisherman, I always stun the fish before cleaning…it’s the right thing to do.

    • With all due respect, the truly right thing to do is not to kill marine animals in the first place.

    • No, the right thing to do is leave the fish alone and find another way to enjoy nature that doesn’t involve killing. You probably cut your fishing line free and leave it so it entangles and harms waterfowl too. You fishermen have no idea of the vast amount of harm that you do to multitudes of creatures.

      • Here here! positively agree with you. These opportunist fishermen do not give a shit about what agony they put the fish through.
        Just because they cannot scream or yell out, these idiots believe that the fish is feeling no pain or agony when the uncaring bastards rip the hooks out of their mouths!
        I’d love to give the fuckers a taste of their own medicine. Ram a fish hook in their mouths, tie the buggers down then start to dig it out so the stupid bastards would then know what it felt like for the unfortunate fish.
        But then w have all the sea fishermen who when the catch is loaded, just leave them to die of air starvation. These are the lucky ones as many of the caught fish are gutted alive !!
        We as human beings are a ‘sick’ race who could not give a shit about anything apart from how much fucking money we can make.
        Man will eventuality destroy the world and looking at the situation right now seems that it will not be too long before it happens!

        • Just to add, most of us know that all the fish hooks are barbed so that once it has penetrated the fish’s mouth it does not come out.
          Only when these so- called fishermen then try to get it out with whatever they use, it rips the fish’s mouth to pieces. Funnily enough ( well sure not funny at all) the fish doesn’t scream so obviously to these fucking blockheads, it is feeling NO PAIN!

          What a brave lot these fishermen are, having to use hooks with fucking barbs on them! And they call it skilful to land a fish that cannot get away!
          Dickheads all of them. As I said above, I really would like to do the same to them so they then would know what fucking agony the fish has to suffer.
          If anyone thinks differently to most others who have submitted a response on this site, then all I can say is you are just as bad as these callous non thinking bastards who unwittingly torture and brutally mistreat fish and any other animals. Human Beings are the bloody problem, NOT ANIMALS AND CREATURES.

  3. NO ONE NO WHERE GAVE US THE RIGHT TO TAKE OTHERS……we know so very much more now than ever and we DO N OT NEED BODY PARTS for a healthy diet…yes it might be a big change to some…but it IS THE RIGHT THING TO DO!! They have a right to their best lives no different than us!!

  4. Gandhi stated, “The GREATNESS of a nation and its MORAL PROGRESS can be judged by the WAY its animals are TREATED.” At lease stun the fish to render them unconscious before you skin them!

  5. Maria Lavorato says:

    DON’T EAT FISH.

    They feel pain!!.. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN ACKNOWLEDGED IONS AGO!

    STOP THE TORTURE IMMEDIATELY! START BEING HUMANE TO ALL CREATURES NOW!

  6. STOP KILLIMG FISH AND ALL OTHER ANIMALS WILD AND DOMESTICATED BY ANIMAL CRUELTY WITH TORTURE AND ABUSE IMMEDIATELY!!! STOP ASPHYXIATI GAND CUTTING FISH APART IMMEDIATELY!!!

  7. Rose Coffey says:

    I have always thought about the fish and other food oriented water creatures. It’s time to step up and do the right thing!

  8. Monica+Lee+Koski says:

    It is bad enough to “catch” fish to eat, but it is not necessary to slowly suffocate them and cut them up alive. No living being deserves that cruelty and torture! At the very least, it would be simple enough, and the only humane choice, to stun them to lessen their misery and suffering

    • The only living beings who deserve this torture are the bastard humans who inflict it in the first place. The non-caring tossers who do not give a shit what pain they inflict on innocent animals and creatures.
      But then the majority of these arseholes enjoy making animals suffer. Makes them feel hard and powerful— bastards, all of them!
      By the number of replies on this site, it proves that normal people are becoming aware and sickened by what these bastard humans are capable of!
      And, they are going to get stopped. Enough is enough.
      The world is full of these torturing bastards And the only time it will start to get better is when these shitbags are DEAD!!
      It is going to happen believe me!

  9. Annette & Jeff Patrone says:

    AMEN to everyone’s comments!!!

  10. Joseph Kenosky says:

    This is despicable and needs to end immediately.

  11. GO VEGAN and this animal hell will end very soon. As long as profit is involved, animal welfare always takes a back seat!
    Vegan is the only ethical lifestyle because it’s totally CRUELTY-FREE! Everything else is hypocrisy, lies, selfishness and wishful thinking!!
    GO VEGAN and Planet Earth will heal sooner than expected.
    Stop financing greed and psychopathic sadism!

    • Jaime Perez says:

      I agree with you!

    • Exactly my thoughts and feelings. No one in this world gives a fuck about the suffering of animals through humans greed and exploitation.
      It’s all the arrogant, ‘over rich’ with their could not care less as long as they are alright Jack attitudes that need bloody well culling! And the stupid bastards that only eat steak cooked very rare ‘basically raw‘ as the idiots think it makes them look hard. Unfortunately money talks and stupid people will do anything for it.
      But with the hundreds of thousands of animals being slaughtered every day the world would be over run with excess animals with nowhere to go! So it becomes a stale – mate.
      Not sure where it would go from here!
      Any suggestions!!

  12. Jaime Perez says:

    Just leave the poor fish alone!

  13. Feeling pain doesn’t necessarily fully equate to sentient.

    • Apparently reading the bare minimum of research and drawing a flawed conclusion doesn’t necessarily equate to intelligence either.
      There is an ABUNDANCE of data that proves fish have sentience, awareness, intelligence and and even exhibit altruism (fish helping a sick tankmate to the top of the tank so it could eat, a FAMOUS British study of fish from years ago).
      Watch the widely-viewed “My Octopus Teacher” and learn just how sentient marine creatures are.
      We should NOT be doing the stuff we are doing to fish. It is a flaw in humans that we think a being doesn’t have sentience merely because it doesn’t look like us.

  14. Stop killing fish. Kill human babies … we are fucking overpopulated. Fuck babies. Fish are much more loving than a fucking baby

    • It seems a little harsh to kill human babies as they did not ask to be born and is not their fault.
      What is really needed is to stop people continuously shagging around and unnecessarily making them as this planet is already grossly over populated and getting worse every day!
      There definitely needs to be laws introduced so that no one can have more than two babies per family.
      The greedy sods who keep knocking out double figures of kids just to get paid ‘child allowance’ must be stopped first.
      Sterilise the woman and ‘chop’ the horny fucking men!

      What do you see everywhere you go? Houses, houses, and ‘more’ houses being built. More green space being taken over by building companies and forcing out animals and creatures who were living there!
      Just the same in the forests and jungles. Butchering nature’s habitat for greed and profit! Then butchering the innocent animals who live there because they are in the way!
      Human beings are the fucking problem here as they will easily kill each other for profit and gain. So the animals and creature do not stand a fucking chance.
      Humans are the bastards who need ‘culling’ but where to start?
      Governments must get involved to stop this crisis otherwise it will come to the point of no return.
      Just to mention, it is saId that if a whale could scream when being cut up alive’ it would burst the eardrums of it’s hunters.’ Got to be worth thinking about.

      • Bridgette Tannehill says:

        Communistic view there Jon White. You would have fit in well in Hitler’s world.

        • Hello Bridgette,
          Maybe you know some better ways of dealing with these sikko’s, psyco’s, torturing bastards, or whatever you want to call them!
          I am sure that I and thousands more would love to hear!

  15. Painless and stress free should be the minimum required for any animal!

  16. Rupert Howes, CEO of Marine Stewardship Council

    Cease inhumane methods used to end lives of innocent and helpless fish.
    I knew this as a child when watching the fish my grandfather caught. He wasn’t deliberately cruel but I watched and thought about how they struggled to live.
    The world now understands that yes they want to live or at least die as painlessly as Possible. Please make it happen.
    This is despicable and needs to end immediately.November 7, 2022 at 1:09 pm
    AMEN to everyone’s comments.

  17. WHAT WOULD THESE CRUEL PERSONS SAY IF A DOCTOR AMPUTATE A LEG OR SO WITHOUT PUTTING THEM FIRST ASLEEP??????

  18. WHAT WOULD THESE CRUEL PERSONS SAY IF A DOCTOR AMPUTATE A LEG OR SO WITHOUT PUTTING THEM FIRST ASLEEP?????? NO THIS IS MAY FIRST TIME I SAY THAT.

  19. Better yet, GO VEGAN — the depraved CRUELTY to Fish will NOT end — it all takes place behind the scenes — as long as there’s market for Fish, the barbaric violence will continue — GO VEGAN

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