The line between cruelty and cuisine can at times be a bit hard to discern. We have previously discussed whether swallowing live gold fish (or even selling gold fish) is an act of criminal cruelty. Now a man, Daniel Challis, 24, has been found guilty of causing suffering to a fish after posting a video of his swallowing the fish on a dare.
Challis and his friend Cheryl Stevens, 27, filmed the incident and posted a 35 second clip on Facebook. She was also found guilty of the same charge. The video followed heavy drinking after work and a dare from a third party to swallow the pet in the office of the Crazy Horse bar in Paignton last March.
What is interesting is that is widely accepted to eat sushi where fish are eaten soon after being killed with a knife. Lobsters and crabs are generally boiled alive. Would it have been a criminal offense to kill the fish with a knife and then swallow it?
What do you think?
Kind of related. Since someone mentioned the Stepford Wives.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-15940985
That’s a lot of dogs. That’s a small sled. Feeding those dogs, given how many calories they will go through in a day, will be hard. And those two guys will have to eat, too.
Except for very few of us, we live in a culture that places no value on life.
One way that humans are different from other animals is that we can consciously make the decision not to attack and destroy the lives of others. So far, too many of us are no better than animals in that way. In fact many animals are superior to us in that way.
I am convinced you have no idea of the consequences of what you are proclaiming. I say this as a Catholic against abortion. I say this as a life long hunter, for whom everything in the world has meaning which I must see in order to hunt, and you can not. You deny it exists.
I look up, I look down. Everywhere I see sign.Sign of life. Thus is the glory of God.
I know of no one who can shut down a conversation like me.
Who says we’re the only species? I once came across a black bear foraging for food during a turkey hunt. My puny 12 gauge loaded with three no.4 buckshot would have been a splinter for that behemoth. He looked at me, sniffed the air and then ran away. I’m no bear psychologist but no way that bear was fearing anything. He just chose not to charge.And I chose to charge the other way.
Was it no. 4 Buckshot or no. 4 birdshot? If you were hunting turkey that would would imply latter.
Good load, by the way.
No it was No. 4 buck. They aren’t chickens!
Buckshot of any kind will really tear up a turkey, sort of defeating the purpose.
You gotta shoot the head. The body is almost impenetrable.
Yes, you do. My respects, sir. You are a man who clearly knows what he’s doing. I just didn’t use anything larger than “T” on birds.
Shot plenty of them. Hens taste the best.
I don’t doubt you I still never used anything large than “T.”
Lot of people do. I like the 4-buck since I use ’em for deer sometimes, too. Usually for deer though, I like No.1s or maybe 00s. 4s are for when you miss early and need that last shot.
T on geese.
Having researched the matter, I don’t believe larger shot is legal when hunting waterfowl. Which isn’t to say you are wrong on Turkey.
Geese: 1-7/8 oz Buffered BB Copper Plated Shot ! They come out at 1210fps and good for 45-50 yards. Longer shots: Federal 1 3/8 oz BB! They come out at 1550fps and can kill at 70 yards
BB is not a bad choice. And I won’t argue with you. But I prefer T.
http://www.hallowellco.com/shot_size_chart.htm
I remain firm in my conviction. Also, while the Federal load is not to be despised I prefer to load my own.
Have you ever won an argument with a reloader?
The most perfect shot I ever made was on a Cape Hartebeest in Namibia. I wasn’t even planning to shoot that day. But the PH, he later tells me, well understood I was shooting the .338 WinMag and my friend wasn’t. So this Cape Hartebeest presents himself and the PH wakes me up to tell me, “You take him.” He’s a long way away. The wind is blowing hard. I put the vertical crosshairs on his back, the horizontal on the front of his chest.
Perfect heart shot.
Horizontal and the vertical. I got it backward.
No, they have the pow(d)er!
I also don’t know anyone who says we’re the only species. Does anyone? I don’t.
That’s what the comment said, I thought.
My bad.
If one wonders what it must be like to live in a totalitarian state, see the example such as this court.
Sound incredulous? Consider this. Human societies have certain basic rules that are universal and any normally minded person can appreciate that stealing, assaulting, and vandalism are universally illegal. But when a person is arrested and punished for something that is not at all expected, and rather arbitrary, it is akin to rule by decree and unscrupulous punishments.
Did this man, or any reasonable person, expect to be arrested for eating fish? Well now he has been made a pescatarmisdemeanant.for doing nothing wrong. So the state needed to bring in an expert witness to testify as to the digestive process and low oxygen environment to show how cruel it is. Would a lay person know these things? What am I talking about? Now I’m thinking in the fashion of this court.
We also have to wonder if the bar for acceptance of the killing of an animal has now been reduce to goldfish. What is next snails and slugs? Don’t put any salt on that slug or you will be arrested. Don’t mix vinegar and baking soda because it causes greenhouse gas emissions. When does it end?
When a government wants to control and micromanage every aspect of life, it is time that government should be sacked during the next election.
Throwing a live crab or lobster in a pot of boiling water seems much more cruel to me. I’ve never been able to eat crab after hearing the scream of one thrown into a boiling pot. In Chinatown fish markets, you point out the fish you want and they take it out of the aquarium, smack it in the head with a dowel, and wrap it for you to take home. It was jarring the first time I saw that, but it’s far less cruel than throwing a live fish in boiling water or searing oil.
The only thing sillier than swallowing a live goldfish is prosecuting someone for doing so.
I don’t think the non-prosecucution of Gold Fish swallowing is going to result in a trend.
Swatting a mosquito is murder in a sense. Goldfish bowls aren’t particularly sanitary are them, salmonella payback?
Do I have the religion for you. Whoo Boy!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism
Did he plop the goldfish in a shot of tequila? Because then it’s OK, and it’s racist for you to complain.
No more cruel than throwing a live fish on a searing frying pan, as you see in fancy French cooking.
I have a love/hate relationship with cooking shows. I like my food dead. Perhaps some rabbis will show up, but I believe this is the Biblical perspective. But too many cooking shows don’t involve killing the damned thing before eating it. Here I’m going to depart from my Jewish brethren, because I will eat crustaceans. I recall watching a cooking show in Japan. The guy cuts the tail off a lobster. He’s extolling the virtues of the tail. Meanwhile, the rest of the Lobster is crawling off screen stage right. I’m yelling at the TV, “Kill the damn lobster, for the love of God.”
But no. It’s Japan.
JT wasn’t eating Gold Fish, packing as many people as possible in phone booths and VW Beetles regular practice with you and your college mates to let off steam? I thought Fish & Chips was a British staple.
This is a stupid decision. Judges are losing contact with reality.
The only trick to doing that is making sure they are not big enough to have bones that won’t dissolve readily. To get them to go down easily do a whole raw egg in the mouth add the fish and burp…then you can claim the raw egg and fish was a valid sushi dish……or something. That’s an old party game trick. In survival school we did it for real including cleaning the fresh fish with the only tool available. Teeth. I’ve seen the instructors bite the head off a snake at the thin part of the neck, gut it with a finger down to the anus.fold the skin and scale back and strip it off in one pull and then if your finicky cook the meat on a hot rock. If their lucky the barrister and Judge will be a retire SAS or SBS type and have a good laugh.
All I can tell you is you can make a smokehouse cooker out of a parachute but if you try to cook a snake in one you might as well try to eat the parachute.
The way to cook snake is gutted and skinned, with a little less focus on the anus than Michael deems necessary. Wrapped, coiled, around a stick over an open fire. But not too big a fire as that will just give you away. And don’t forget the soy sauce. That zippered pocket in the upper arm of your flight suit was made for those soy sauce packets from that Chinese takeout you just tossed in a drawer.
Soy sauce also works on ants and armadillo.
My SERE time included beach foraging. We made a huge stew with small crab, shell fish and such. We were prohibited from taking the seal. But somebody crowned a seagull. The instructors had briefed the hunters that they needed to immediatly skin, gut and through it into the pot.
God am i glad i had already had my serving. Lesson…beach seagull freshkill is absolutely horridly putrid. Half the class went hungry.
The state and feds had authorized the kill in advance in case we were able.
I still think any deck sailor who re-enlists while assigned to a ship should be given a shotgun and a case of shells to get even for all the fresh paintwork ruined by the,white and black decorations deposited by said foul fowl.
“I still think any deck sailor who re-enlists while assigned to a ship should be given a shotgun and a case of shells to get even for all the fresh paintwork ruined by the,white and black decorations deposited by said foul fowl.”
You wouldn’t have to justify in terms of revenge, though it’s well deserved, damn birds, You’d just have to justify it as training the crew as to how to lead a target. Everybody needs to know how to do that. Skeet shooting off the fantail? Followed by drinks and dancing in the Armada Lounge.
Some people see Jonathan Livingston Seagull, others see flying rats.
One of the dams near where I grew up had a problem with flying rats eating an unacceptably large number of the fry that went through the dam. It was causing a depletion of the trout and other fish runs. So, the PUD bought some shotguns and a load of shells and went open season on them. It worked well. Later, though, it was discovered that stringing wire across the river near the spillways worked well.
On another note, A relative of mine who retired from the Air Force told me he had served with some pilots referred to as “seagulls”. For why? Because you had to throw rocks at them to get them to fly.
“On another note, A relative of mine who retired from the Air Force told me he had served with some pilots referred to as “seagulls”. For why? Because you had to throw rocks at them to get them to fly.”
That’s good. I’m going to have to steal that one.
Seriously, Michael, what the hell are they teaching you in starvival training? I was only Navy but I could manage to attach a knife to myself. Usually three, at least. And if I could make landfall I could make tools out of rocks. But here you Army types are using your teeth.
Weird.
“…beach seagull freshkill is absolutely horridly putrid. Half the class went hungry. ”
It doesn’t get better with age. I endured DWEST, Deep Water Environment Survival Training, and DEST, Desert Environment Survival Training. Seagull will teach you there are worst things than death.
Never made it through JEST. Jungle Environment Survival Training. Where, apparently, Army types explore snake anuses.