"We don't have to take a life."

We have an impression that the lives of fish are so meaningless. Whereas factory farms hide the suffering of animals away from us so that we do not equate meat with the extreme stress, confinement, and live mutilations of living beings, we kill fish right out in the open, even making sport of it, as if their suffering means nothing. This thinking is so deeply ingrained in society that we see nothing wrong with it.

The thought of putting sharp hooks through living beings’ mouths and have them suffocate to death is grisly and depressing but when we think of doing it to a fish, we see it as totally acceptable. This is another form of speciesism where we arbitrarily feel the way that some animals are treated can be completely different than the way other animals can be treated and be totally okay with that. If a piercing hook and suffocation is not acceptable for some living beings (i.e. dogs), then it is not acceptable for other living beings.