23
May
‘The Wright Stuff’ Should Ditch the Goldfish
- posted at 4:00 PM
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- Comments (5)
As we all know by now, fish are pretty smart. They have long-term memories, can use tools and are interesting individuals, just like dogs and cats.
A load of complaints have been pouring in from members of the public about the goldfish on channel Five’s chat-show The Wright Stuff. They sit in a small bowl with no stimulation, and are clearly there for ‘decoration’ purposes. Not to mention it must be stressful being surrounded by stage lights and the general noise you get on a TV chat show.
The science on fish intelligence and their need for social stimulation is so clear that Switzerland has just banned keeping solitary goldfish as ‘pets’, as did Rome a few years back. Picture it like this: to keep a fish in a tiny bowl for his or her entire life is like shoving your dog in a closet and never letting him out.
Here’s the letter that got sent this morning and what Yahoo had to say about it.
23 May 2008
Nick Vaughan-Smith, Series Editor
The Wright Stuff
Channel 5 News
Dear Mr Vaughan-Smith,
PETA is an international non-profit organisation with more than 2 million members and supporters dedicated to the protection of animals. We have received complaints about the live goldfish contained in a small bowl on the reporter’s desk during The Wright Stuff on Channel 5. We are writing to ask you to please consider the following information and find this goldfish a more suitable permanent home in a large tank with places to hide and explore for stimulation.
Goldfish might be small and somewhat alien to us, but I’m certain you’ll agree that they are worthy of care and respect. Goldfish have personalities and abilities that most people don’t know about. For example, they have interesting ways of communicating with each other, forming bonds and grieving when family members and companions die. When confined to toxic enclosures without proper filtration, fish are often poisoned by their own waste, which results in slow and painful deaths. I have enclosed a news article that includes findings from studies showing that fish have feelings and feel pain. The article also encourages people to consider the welfare of fish in the same way that they would consider the welfare of other animals.
All too often, fish and other animals are considered nothing more than expendable commodities and their deaths are caused by inadequate handling and treatment. The city of Rome and entire country of Switzerland have banned keeping goldfish in bowls because the containers do not meet the animals’ needs, and as one sponsor of a similar law in Monza, Italy, pointed out, bowls give fish “a distorted view of reality”. We hope that you agree that no animal deserves to be robbed of their natural habitat and forced to endure a life of endlessly swimming around in the same few cubic inches of water.
We urge you to make The Wright Stuff a more compassionate place for animals and viewers alike by removing the goldfish from the program and finding the fish a permanent home with companions, lots of room to swim around, a working air tank to provide oxygen, a filter to remove waste and places for the fish to hide and explore.
So that we can inform those who have contacted us with concerns, can we please hear from you? Thank you for your consideration of this very important matter. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Bruce Friedrich
Vice President
International Grassroots Campaigns
Enclosure: “Goldfish Have Feelings, Too, Say Fish Researchers”, The Sunday
Times, 28 May, 2006
Can anyone honestly see Matthew Wright being at all bothered about a gold fish????Hes to full of himself to bother about the poor thing.Lets let him Know itsNot acceptable to leave the poor thing as it is,