It's Official: Fish Can Feel the Pain

At least that's what we can deduce from the latest report on the matter coming from a group of scientists at the Rosslin Institute and Edinburgh University. Of course what this means, and what we should do about it, seems to be anyone's guess.

Fish really do feel pain, according to a study conducted by a team of scientists from the Roslin Institute and Edinburgh University, published on Wednesday by the Royal Society. The findings by the institute - famous for producing Dolly the sheep, the first cloned adult mammal - instantly renewed controversy about the morality of angling in a long-running debate in Britain. Lynne Sneddon, formerly at the Roslin Institute and now in Liverpool, found in a study undertaken with Victoria Braithwaite and Michael Gentle that rainbow trout have nociceptors - nerve receptors that respond preferentially to tissue damaging stimuli. "We found 58 receptors located on the face and head of the rainbow trout," Sneddon said. The 18 "polymodal nociceptors", which responded to all painful stimuli in the trout, were the first to be found in fish and had similar properties to those in humans, other mammals and reptiles.

Earlier this year, James Rose of the University of Wyoming said fish lacked consciousness, and that this was a prerequisite for pain. Sneddon's experiments involved bees stinging trout lips which caused some fish to display a rocking motion. Neural activity was recorded in prepared, anaesthetised fish while mechanical, thermal and chemical stimuli were applied to the head. The scientists said the presence of these receptors was not proof on its own - as the fish's change in behaviour could be a mechanical reflex response, so they studied the behavioural response to stimuli. Bee venom or acetic acid was injected into the lips of some trout, while other fish were injected with saline solution or merely handled to form control groups. "Fish demonstrated rocking motion, strikingly similar to the kind of motion seen in stressed higher vertebrates like mammals, and the trout injected with acetic acid were also observed to rub their lips on to the gravel in their tank and on the tank walls. These do not appear to be reflex responses," Sneddon said. The combination of adverse behavioural and physiological effects fulfilled the criteria for pain, the team said. "The study shows that the trout not only possesses nerves that can detect pain but also shows the kind of behavioural changes that would be associated with discomfort and pain in higher animals," said Penny Hawkins, senior scientific officer for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Source: Independent Online
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