BERN, SWITZERLAND – The Swiss federal ethics commission, an independent group of experts, has issued a report with guidelines for treating fish, after studying recent research into whether or not fish feel pain.
The evidence they do is not conclusive, says the group – but neither can the possibility be ruled out.
As a result, the commission says that Switzerland must establish guidelines that include putting fish to death as painlessly as possible, technical measures should be taken to keep to a minimum the risk of aquaculture failing and causing the deaths of large numbers of fish, and anyone doing line fishing should be obliged to show they are competent to do so correctly.
The commission is also calling for aquaculture managers to be alert to the possibility that fish raised intensively may have needs that are different from their wild counterparts, and it wants to ensure that in animal experiments where labs are under pressure not to use mice and rats, they are not replaced by “lower” creatures such as fish.