Pacific Southwest Region USFWS from Sacramento, US, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
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By Bill Stokes
Kickass, the doorstop dog, reports that the keeper sometimes gets behind in adjusting to the flow of information; and is currently struggling with the speculation that humans do not have a monopoly on consciousness, meaning that other species—fish, for example, experience fear, pain, sorrow, and joy, as does all warm and cold-blooded life forms.
The related info included speculation that a fish hooked on the end of a fisherman’s line would scream if it could; and that the revered world of catch-and-release produces a lot of “joyous” released fish, albeit with sore mouths.
As a life-long fisherman, the keeper has not much prescribed to the catch-and-release game, seeing it as “playing with death,” and contrary to his role as a top-tiered predator. When the keeper catches a legal-sized fish, he kills it quickly and takes it home and eats it, guided by the natural proviso of the predators’ “catch-and-eat” policy.
The keeper much appreciates the catch-and-release crowd as its members have helped provide him with lots of good trout breakfasts, a few redfish dinners and many memorable blue-gill filet feasts.
There may be room in the top predator’s mental resume for acknowledging the pain and suffering it routinely metes out to its prey, often in the name of recreation—think fishing and hunting, but the keeper is not sure he is ready for it: to be screamed at by a hooked trout might be too much.
The keeper plans to give it a try anyway, soon!
