The PETA flakes - uh, folks - are at it again. They put up a billboard - or is is a bullboard? - in Pittsburgh where the Bassmaster's Classic was being held, showing a dog with a hook in its mouth. The cute little caption says "If you wouldn't do this to a dog, why do it to a fish?"
PETA does not want you to go fishing, no matter why you go. They claim fish are bad for you if you eat them and that fish feel pain like we do. They say you and I are bad since we fish.
In a USA Today column, PETA person Karin Robertson says "Fish are not swimming vegetables. They feel pain just like other animals, like we do," says Robertson, who uses that name professionally but has legally changed her name to GoVeg.com"
GoVeg sounds like a good name for her. Or maybe "alreadygoneveg"
In the same column James Rose, professor of zoology and physiology at the University of Wyoming and a fisherman, says the "emotional suffering" component of human pain takes place in regions of the brain, the frontal lobes, that don't exist in the brains of fish: "It has to be conscious. ... That consciousness requires a lot more complex brain than a fish has."
But who are you going to believe - a PETA protester or a professor of zoology and physiology?
If you have ever stopped reeling in a hooked fish near the bank and watched it, you know they act like there is no hook in their mouth. I have done this many times with bluegill and bass in my pond. Bluegill will stop fighting and start trying to feed with the hook still in their mouth if there is no pressure put on them. They do not react to pain in the mouth, they react to the pressure of the line.
PETA is so concerned about your health that they don't want you catching and eating fish. In the USA Today article they claim "PETA also opposes fishing for the reasons that waters are loaded with contaminants and that eating fish is unhealthy. Its targets include commercial fishing and fish farms. It also opposes angling for sport"
So they just don't want you to fish, no matter what.
Words are important to PETA, even if they have no idea of their meaning. In the same article is the following quote "This year Robertson has gotten no takers in letters to sports editors of 200 newspapers asking them to drop their fishing columns. Nor has she been successful in asking a California aquarium to take fish off its menu or in getting Fishkill, N.Y., to change its name. Locals there note that "kill" comes from the Dutch word for stream.
So they want to censor articles about fishing, and want towns to change their name if it sounds bad, no matter what it means. If the papers won't censor the fishing articles she suggests "If papers won't take fishing columns out of sports sections, Robertson wants a "more appropriate section like the crime report or the obituaries."
No doubt PETA fish cemetaries are next - maybe they can bury the dogs and cats they kill there. Recently two PETA folks were arrested for dumping dogs and cats they killed in dumpsters - the dogs and cats they killed were picked up to be taken to a shelter, but PETA doesn't want to spend the money it takes to keep them alive. Wonder if they put a hook in their mouth's before killing and dumping them?
A quote from Robertson gives you insight into her thinking - or lack thereof. She says this about fish "They're fascinating individuals. They deserve to be left in the water."
Ever seen a school of shad? Wonder what their names are and how they tell each other apart?
PETA is going after your kids. This is from the USA Today article "Robertson has gone to public areas near schools (most recently in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona), accompanied by an assistant in a fish costume, to pass out "Fish are Friends, Not Food" stickers and Fish Flakes trading cards, which carry PETA's messages about cruelty and contamination.
We need to be aware of what these folks are trying to do and the way they think. It will help us reach rational folks with the truth.
Check out the full USA Today article at the link to the right and above.
