The only people the hordes of the online comment sections seem to hate more than serial killers and terrorists are animal abusers. Invariably, whenever the police bust a family mistreating a dog or cat, someone on the Internet will call for a punishment that almost certainly classifies as “cruel and unusual.”
That’s why I’ve always found it confusing that there is a massive, glaring flaw in animal welfare laws.
Essentially, in some places of the United States, kittens are routinely given to small children without their parents' consent and thus banished to a household that has no idea how to care for them. Death after a few days, weeks or months is common. Pets that live for years are viewed as lucky. Of course, that's nothing compared to the pet stores that keep hundreds in a small room where they are known to tear into each other’s flesh and fur out of stress.
In these regions, it is also common for the media to depict cats stored permanently in a baby’s crib with the cage cleaned about once a month. As such, many families unwittingly view this as the necessary care level.
This all flies against every standard of decency American society has decided animals deserve. And, while the above is never actually legal or common for kittens, it is the plight of the American goldfish.
The common (feeder) goldfish can grow to be 13 inches or longer in the right conditions. There are also reports of them living about 40 years. And while they might not quite have dog-level intelligence, they can remember things for almost two weeks. They can even be taught to do rudimentary tricks and learn to greet their humans at the water’s edge.
And while they might not be terribly expressive, in poor conditions, they can get sick or poisoned. They have also been shown to feel pain.
Let me repeat that: They can feel pain.
Somehow, as a society, we’ve convinced ourselves that it’s OK to stick a creature that can feel pain into tanks smaller than their maximum size where they live a percent or two of their maximum life span, if they’re lucky. Worse yet, I can go into chain pet stores and see a hundred-gallon tank with scores of usually peaceful goldfish ripping into the fins of the other survivors as more and more carcasses float to the top.
If they couldn’t do that to kittens, how can they do it to fish?
In truth, I’m not entirely surprised. Our species cares more about things we think are cute. But where’s the line, then? What’s too cute to torture and what’s not? Who gets to draw that line?
Other countries are starting to move to either ban goldfish bowls or at least ban giving away goldfish as a prize to children or families with no idea how to care for a large, intelligent fish. I think those are good steps, but in order to make our animal welfare laws mean anything, we’d have to go a bit further. Holding stores to at least some standard of care for all animals capable of feeling pain is morally necessary.
Beyond that, most of the burden is on educating a public that, for the most part, doesn’t know that anyone wanting to raise a common goldfish will need at least 30 gallons of tank space per fish. Requiring businesses to inform customers of the proper care for an animal before a purchase just makes common sense. Applying false advertising laws to products marketed for animals not suited for them would also help bring things to parity.
Yes, they are “just goldfish.” Most people have probably stopped reading by this point. But if your life isn’t made better by the mass-torture of a reasonably intelligent species, I see no reason to oppose it.