Peter Singer Article on Fish

On September 14, The Guardian published an article penned by animal-rights activist Peter Singer called “Fish: the forgotten victims on our plate.” The article compares the way other animals are killed for food with the way wild fish are caught and slaughtered—a practice that Singer says has no regulation with regards to their suffering or quickness of death. Singer asserts that, in spite of widely believed myths, fish do feel pain, as researcher Victory Braithwaite evidences in her book Do Fish Feel Pain? Singer cites a recent study, “Worst Things Happen at Sea: the Welfare of Wild-caught Fish,” released by fishcount.org.uk, a website that promotes awareness and solutions regarding commercial fishing, in which author Alison Mood calculates that between one and 2.7 trillion fish are killed worldwide annually.