"Hooked on a myth"

In Hooked on a myth, Victoria Braithwaite introduce the problem which is based on how we treat fish. She tries to identify whether there is really any biological justification for exempting fish from the standards as those of bigger animals such as cats and dogs etc. She includes if fish actually feel pain, whether they suffer or not but also if we are accurate when we say that fish are unfeeling animals that are just dumb. It has been found that fish have nociceptors around their mouth which alert them of pain so they question of whether they feel pain might be yes. When the nociceptors were stimulated with chemicals researchers found that they did react to the pain by beating their gills faster, they were rubbing the areas affected with the chemical on the walls of the tank, they lost appetite, and had problems making decisions. After the fish were injected with a substance for pain and their behavior was induced by the experience of pain. Braithwaite's main argument here is why fish are treated differently than other animals because there are clues that they do feel pain. Many people think of fish as being dumb but many don't know that they are actually clever because of their ability to be able to learn geometrical relationships and landmarks as escape routes. Not to mention that surprisingly fish's brains are similar to those of a mammalian amygdala and hippocampus and their forebrains associate with emotion, learning, and memory. She is strong about changing the ways that we treat fish but that we don't necessarily have to change our behavior towards them. She say's that it also shouldn't interfere with sports fishing because that outweighs this and the suffering of fish. Braithwaite is bothered by the fact that it has taken this long to be able to determine whether fish feel pain or not.