Fish out of water.

This will be ranty. Hie thee to Cute Overload if you wish to avoid excessive rantiness.

OH MY GOD WHAT KIND OF DUMBSHIT PUTS GOLDFISH IN A SWIMMING POOL?!?!?!

Ahem. Deep breath. Let me count to 10.

It has come to my attention that as part of an end-of-summer celebration (so, around Labor Day), a public pool near us is in the practice of dumping goldfish into the water and allowing kids to go in after them.

I’ll give you a minute to process the extreme cruelty of this situation.

Keep in mind, I heard this story from someone who realized how much it would upset me, though she giggled the entire time she told it. She tried to gloss it over, assuring me that they were told to bring containers of fresh water for the fish once they were scooped out of the poisonous chlorinated water.

Even without the benefit of Google, I knew that fish and chlorine don’t mix. Chlorine is basically bleach. It is toxic. It stings. Ever been in the pool too long and had that nice chlorine afterburn in your eyes? Delightful, no? Do you want to know what it does to our fishy friends? It burns and erodes their gills. Without their gills, they can’t breathe. Without breathing, they die. If by some miracle they survive to be plopped into that container of clean water (and even tap water is chlorinated; I highly doubt these parents tested and adjusted the chemistry of their water before this little science experiment), they will still have suffered injuries and may very well die later.

In doing research to bolster my outrage, I learned a little bit about chlorine. Most tap water has a chlorine concentration of about 0.5 ppm (parts per million) at most—the EPA requires a minimum of 0.2 ppm to kill bacteria that could otherwise be harmful to humans. Swimming pools, on the other hand, frequently clock in between 1.0 and 3.0 ppm (any higher can be unsafe for swimming). Water with as little chlorine as 0.2 ppm can kill fish rapidly. Basically, even the least-chlorinated tap water is gonna poison your fish, and you’re a fucking idiot for not knowing better.

I’ve been entertaining horrifying visions of shrieking children splashing around in a frenzy, grabbing roughly at terrified fish. Meanwhile, the fish are suffocating while they desperately try to escape. Fish are exquisitely sensitive animals. They feel sound vibrations. Of course they feel pain, though some people still don’t seem to be on board with this. We all learned that they only have a three-second memory span, but it’s actually more like three months. They exhibit learning behaviors. Being pursued by screaming, flailing anything is a nightmare for any kind of fish (and mammal, and bird, and reptile….). They think they’re about to be killed, and they are.

So, that fish that my friend’s kids managed to “rescue” and bring home? He (she?) died, along with the fish that they brought home from a carnival. She told me that, when she was removing the dead fish with a paper towel, some of the orange from their scales rubbed off. Her four-year-old was dismayed, thinking it was blood. When her mother corrected her and told her it was just color from the fishes’ skin, it was all better for her.

Pity it wasn’t for the fish.

Goldfish photo ripped from Wikipedia.

Fish are friends, not food.

From the WTF File: Baltimore’s National Aquarium is hosting a sustainable seafood dining series. After enjoying the bodies of oysters and other marine life, guests are invited to tour the Aquarium. You know, to meet the relatives of their dinner.

Is it just me, or is this shades of the Humane Society of Missouri, which recently held a (non-vegan) fundraising barbecue and polo match? The cognitive disconnects that we are capable of astound me. “Greetings, honored donors: here we have our rescued cows, and the buffet is right over there. Try the ribs.” Aaaaarrrrrggghhhh.

Oh, Aquarium. I used to love the Aquarium. It was a place of magic and wonder: the fantastic dolphin show (I never minded getting splashed), the rain forest with its resident sloth, all the millions of species of fish and other creatures. The Australia exhibit was full of the most amazing animals I’ve ever seen. And the seals! I could watch them for hours. Always a water child (I’m a Cancer), I wanted so badly to swim with them. I’m so sad to realize that they don’t have the happy lives I thought they did. They’re bored and penned-in, unable to swim freely and find their own food. Having a dead fish tossed to you must be a pale imitation of the real thing. And the sharks, used to ranging across their territory for miles—a tank, no matter how large and interesting, can’t compare.

I appreciate the conservation and rehabilitation work the Aquarium does. But our oceans are so depleted: why host events where the very creatures you’re trying to save are the main course? (Here, someone will argue that Chesapeake oysters are fine, since the moratorium gave them time to recover their numbers. Good luck with that, oysters.) It’s okay to eat fish, but not dolphins or seals or sea turtles? They’re harmed by fishing too. They’re caught in nets and their food sources are stolen. I’m sad because most people don’t think of sea creatures when they decide to give up meat. Want to rile me up? Tell me you’re a vegetarian who eats fish. I’ll understand, because I was there once, but I’ll make sure you know you’re not a vegetarian.

I think I’m saddest because there are so few ways for people, especially kids, to really interact with animals without those animals being exploited. Farm sanctuaries are wonderful, and I look forward to taking my kids there (you know, once I have them). Then I’ll have to explain why we can’t go to the zoo or the circus or the aquarium—and I know I’ll be conflicted because I’ll want so much for my children to meet a dolphin or a monkey or a giraffe, to experience their sheer awesomeness face-to-face. It’s ironic that because we love animals so much and want to ensure their ethical treatment, we can’t always interact with them in the ways that society tells us we can. Having a conscience sucks sometimes. Red calls it falling down the rabbit hole. I just wish there was a foolproof way to make people acknowledge the connections.