Tag: fish

A Lesson in Life at the End of the Rainbow by John Zimmerman

by Guest, posted in Wildlife

The below story by guest author John Zimmerman is the second place story from our first anthology, The Dog Who Wooed at the World. For more powerful stories like this, get your copy!

I didn’t want it to die. Him to die?

I had never felt that way about the hundreds of other fish I had caught throughout my life.

Not the first time, when I was a lad at Fish-A-While Lake snuffing out the life of a sunfish at the end of a bamboo pole.

Not when my friends and I would nail freshly caught catfish to a nearby tree, thrust a knife into their heads, strip off their flesh with a pair of pliers, and then gut them and cook them over the campfire. I never for a second considered the immense pain the fishes must have felt—pain that we inflicted upon them.

Not when I brought home a stringer of Lake Michigan perch for a fish fry. Not when I caught my limit of coho from the same lake, to be eaten the next day after my mom soaked their fileted orange-red flesh in milk overnight to dampen the salmon’s strong flavor.

Nor did I care about the three other rainbow trout I caught just weeks before at the very same lake. But fearing for the suffering of the rainbow trout in front of me now, I found myself screaming, “Die already!” 

He had fought so hard to free himself from the stringer I had run through his powerful jaws after I had caught him, even as I fished on. I kept looking at him as he turned his body over and over, displaying his beautiful colors. Black spots dotted his silver flesh. A radiant pink stripe ran from tail to gill, twinkling in the late sunlight. I saw a flash of green and yellow. 

Finally, he slapped his tail furiously on the water, one last time, and died. I poked the trout with the tip of my fishing rod, to be sure. He went belly-up, leaving no doubt. I knelt on the shoreline and freed the fish from the stringer. I held the muscular, ice-cold trout in my hands and again admired his colors. This trout was painted at God’s easel. Then I dropped the fish in the water in horror and asked him to swim away.

He didn’t.

I ordered him to swim!

He didn’t.

“SWIMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!” I screamed, frightening a nearby mallard into flight.

He didn’t. The chop in the water forced the dead trout back up on the bank. I petted him like a dog.

Then I cried.

I was stunned at my response. I had never felt like a killer. Until then.

Why? I think it was not only because of the way the fish died, but how he came to die.

He was one of 2,000 rainbow trout stocked in a suburban pond and ready for the catch. The shoulder-to-shoulder trout didn’t stand a chance. A great deal of the trout chucked into the lake are caught within hours after the 5 a.m. start time. Mind you, they didn’t succumb to any Ernest Hemingways quietly flipping dry flies at the trout lurking in the deep pools of cool mountain streams winding through piney woods. No, the opening of trout fishing day at the stocked lake off the freeway finds suburbanites standing in the weeds making a fuss with worms and lures in hopes of catching trout. And most do. The trout would survive the trauma of being hauled from their hatchery hundreds of miles away, only to fall victim to a piece of bait bought at the Walmart off the busy boulevard.

My fish, the one I killed, made it past those opening days. He was a survivor. He had beat the odds and lived. He avoided attaching himself to those hundreds of baited hooks and lures. He somehow lived on in water that was far too warm and turbid for a trout to maintain life.

He was a strong fish. 

And a courageous one.

When we first met, he thought twice about taking my bait. The bobber moved a bit, then stopped. My heart started to race. My eyes locked on that round red and white plastic ball holding up my bait. The bobber moved again, this time a few feet. Then it went under, just a little. Then, a little more. Finally, the bobber was yanked out of sight. I pulled my rod back, hard. I felt resistance.

I got him!

He fought hard for his life. He zigged. He zagged. He leapt. He went deep. He leapt again. He thrashed back and forth. But the hook was too deep. The trout finally went slack, and I began to reel him in. He went into a frenzy one more time, after being pulled into shallow water and spotting the shore. Then he quit. He was just too damn tired. I reeled the trout onto the shore, freed the hook and strung him.

I was happy, at first. He was a nice fish—bigger and prettier than the other trout I had caught. I wish I had had someone to show him off to, but I was the only one at the lake that evening that by then was rapidly dying on the horizon. No one even got to see the admirable fight between me and that rainbow. 

But then it hit me. I took the life of someone so beautiful, so strong, so unique. And for what? I was thankful there was no one there to see me cry.

I didn’t know what to do with his body. I first thought of burying it. But in the end, I did what I always did with my dead fish. I brought it home to be eaten, so he did not die in vain. My wife enjoyed the rainbow trout dinner. I didn’t take a bite. I couldn’t put a fork to it after what I did. The fish made it through the opening Battle on the Rainbow Trout, only to later die at the hands of a sniper.

That trout should get a medal, posthumously, for his bravery. After all, he saved a lot of lives by his death. Lives I would have taken. Because after that day, I could never fish again.

 I learned something new about life, at the end of the rainbow.

🐟 Get your copy of the anthology & support our powerful storytelling work! 🐟

John Zimmerman is a retired newspaper writer and educator who lives in Carol Stream, Illinois. John has won several awards, including an Indiana Associated Press first place in editorial writing and an Illinois Press Association second place in column writing. John was also a special education teacher. As a playwright, John’s dramas and comedies have been produced in California, Michigan, New York, and Indiana. John has also published essays and poetry. When John is not writing, he enjoys spending time with family and his golden retriever. John is also a grateful cancer survivor.

Photo: Tom Koerner/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Need a Breath of Fresh Air? Two Words: Sea Puppies.

by Laura Lee Cascada, posted in Petitions, Wildlife

It’s been a rough week–hell, it’s been a rough year. Fellow humans are fighting for their lives, both in hospitals and on the streets in the wake of the brutal murder of George Floyd. And we’ve gotten our first glimpse inside a factory farm that was forced to mass-exterminate pigs because of slaughterhouse shutdowns due to workers contracting COVID-19.

I’ve spent the week trudging through the desolate headlines, taking action for our Black family and friends where I can, and soaking up tips to become a better ally. As an animal advocate, I must also be a human advocate. Animal oppression is rooted in the same oppressive system that kills Black and Brown people, and our work won’t be done until we’ve addressed all of it.

Over the last few months as the world seems to be topping down around me–and especially now–it’s been hard to find a time to write an inspiring story about animals that feels meaningful. So I’ve stagnated in my writing while waging on with other forms of social justice activism.

The truth is that there’s not going to be that perfect moment, as the flaws in our society keep bubbling up to the surface: cruel factory farms and slaughterhouses that serve as breeding grounds for disease and keep farmers and workers trapped in an exploitative cycle, systemic racism etched into the fabric of the very force that’s supposed to protect citizens of all skin colors, and constant reminders that the powers-that-be care more about profits and economic activity than immigrant, elderly, non-white, poor, and animal lives.

At some point, though, I have to take a breather and find comfort in the world–if only to help refuel me to get back into battle. So, during those brief minutes, I figured we could all use a dose of snuggly puppies.

And these very special puppies happen to live in the sea.

Photo credit: Jonathan Rosenberry

Back when cruises were a thing, my friends Jonathan Rosenberry and Maureen Cohen Harrington had the opportunity to hop aboard the Holistic Holiday at Sea, an all-vegan Caribbean cruise centered on plant-based eating and wellness.

There, in the glittering teal waters, they encountered soft, cuddly beings eager to embrace them with their massive flapping wings. These beings can only be described accurately as floppy, curious, silly puppies–of the sea.

Photo credit: Maureen Cohen Harrington

Their actual name is, of course, rays, a group of cartilaginous fish comprising more than 600 species. Unfortunately, more than 500 of these species are on the IUCN Red List, threatened by human fishing.

Like all fishes, rays are remarkably intelligent, adaptable, and innovative. The behemoth manta ray, whose wingspan can reach nearly 30 feet, was documented in a 2016 study to use a mirror to check out body parts that this animal normally can’t see. Individuals were also fixated by their reflection as they furled and unfurled their horn-shaped mouth fins repeatedly. While we should take care not to use such anthropocentric measures like the use of mirrors as definitive metrics of animal intelligence, we can at least appreciate these results as fascinating yet limited glimpses into complex minds we are barely beginning to understand.

Despite their clear sentience and complexity, though, these fish are violently killed by the thousands for human food and medicine–often even being cut apart into pieces while still conscious because their enormous bodies don’t fit onto boats.

But perhaps such research can lead us to reassess our propensity for ripping these rays–and other fish–en masse from their oceanic homes. In response to the 2016 study, a student blogger at the University of Washington wrote, “If manta rays are self-aware, what about other fish and shark species? Have we been underestimating them all along? For years humans vainly believed we were the only ones with higher-order intelligence. Maybe it is time to take a step back and give our wild counterparts more credit.”

Photo credit: Jonathan Rosenberry

Close to my home, another fight has been unfolding for the past several years over the much smaller cownose ray. Every May, these gentle rays migrate to the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, where females give birth to a single live pup after an 11-month-long gestation period.

As the rays arrive to labor over their long-awaited newborns, fishermen armed with arrows lurk, preparing for an annual killing contest. They don’t discriminate, often shooting pregnant rays and babies alike. Until three years ago.

In 2017, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan signed a bill into law placing a moratorium on the savage killing contests through July 2019, during which time the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) was to develop a ray management plan.

Yet the DNR failed to do so in time, necessitating further protection for cownose rays upon the expiration of the moratorium. Thus, activists from the Save the Rays Coalition banded together and successfully achieved an extension on the moratorium until a management plan is created.

But it’s been a full year, and there’s still no sign of a more permanent ban on cruel ray killing contests. It’s time to demand that cownose rays are shielded once and for all from being mercilessly hunted as part of a twisted competition.

Even amidst multiple national crises, sea puppies have managed to warm my heart ever so slightly. Join me in making sure they’ll have a safe harbor in the waters of our Bay for years to come.

Petition closed with 226 signatures.

Here’s Why Trademarked Glowing Fish Aren’t Such a Bright Idea

by Laura Lee Cascada, posted in Companions, Petitions

Saltwater aquariums, though prized for their glorious colors and living reefs, are a massive undertaking. And the havoc the exotic fish trade wreaks on tropical sea life is no secret. But for people who are itching to adorn their homes with vibrant fish, science came up with an easy solution: fluorescent freshwater fish. And the pet industry lapped it up–but at what cost?

A couple years ago I stumbled upon the GloFish® website–yes, trademark and all–and I was transfixed by the words: “GloFish® fluorescent fish are born brilliant! They are not painted, injected or dyed. They inherit their harmless, lifelong color from their parents. They get their stunning color from a fluorescence gene and are best viewed under a blue light.”

I was floored. It read like an advertisement for a new car. Toying with living beings this way hardly seemed harmless. I needed to know more.

These fish were among the first genetically modified animals to have been made available on a commercial scale. But their journey to pet store shelves was not quite intentional. At the turn of the 21st century, scientists from Singapore were attempting to engineer fish who could glow in the presence of certain environmental toxins as a biomarker for pollutants. They inserted fluorescent jellyfish genes into zebrafish, creating the first iteration of glowing freshwater fish.

The patented technology eventually caught the eye of the company that would ultimately create and trademark the GloFish, available now in zebrafish, tetras, danios, sharks, and barbs. As I write this, the brand is currently marketing its “Mardi Gras collection” on its website, comprising two Moonrise Pink tetras, two Galactic Purple tetras, and two Sunburst Orange tetras, to commemorate the festive occasion.

Video captured at a Virginia Petco store

Despite opposition from groups like the Center for Food Safety, the glowing fish made their way to American store shelves with a stamp of approval from officials who claimed that the captive fish posed no threat to wildlife or the food supply. (And a study later attempted to back that up, documenting that non-GMO male fish out-competed GloFish with female mates, which would eventually lead to the disappearance of the fluorescent trait in a population–should a stray GloFish ever make his way into the natural environment, that is.)

The GloFish line, from a commercial perspective, has been a massive success. The company’s sales now comprise about 10 percent of the entire aquarium industry.

And it’s easy to see why: Many people don’t want the hassle of setting up and maintaining a saltwater aquarium just to enjoy brilliantly colored fish in their living rooms. Freshwater is (relatively) easy. Plus, more and more consumers are becoming aware of the death and destruction caused by the saltwater fish trade, which pulls over 20 million fish from the waters of places like the Philippines and Hawaii every year and results in six fish deaths per live fish sold due to dangerous and cruel capture and shipping methods. And let’s not get started on the extensive coral reef damage.

Breeding fish in a captive, contained environment seemingly circumvents most of those issues.

But I was still left wondering if, throughout these past two decades of tinkering with the genetics of these tiny beings in a lab, anyone ever stopped to consider a fundamental question: What’s in it for the fish themselves? Admittedly, apart from making them the life of a house party, the modification doesn’t seem to inflict any other known physical changes on them. They eat, swim, and live just like regular zebrafish, tetras, and barbs. The process of breeding fish from already modified fish is not inherently invasive (unlike chemically dyeing or injecting inks into fish–two common, but undoubtedly cruel, practices in the aquarium industry that lead to illness and high mortality).

Yet, clearly, fluorescence won’t provide an average tetra with an evolutionary advantage, either. (Imagine a neon orange freshwater fish trying to hide from a predator behind a few strands of seaweed or a pile of grey rocks.)

So are we left with net result of zero in our cost-benefit analysis of GloFish welfare? Not quite.

The moment that Yorktown Technologies, the original company behind the GloFish, entered the picture, this genetic manipulation in the name of science became a gimmick.

The goal: Make the look and feel of saltwater tanks more accessible. Make freshwater fish prettier, more enticing, more consumable. Like a vacuum, a new car, or a frozen burrito, these fish needed to be branded.

The aquarium industry has turned these fishes’ genetics into a commodity that it markets to us as an innovative way to spruce up our home decor. After all, like any industry, it has to churn out fresh products to keep us interested. And, so far, it’s worked: There are over 9 million fish sold by this multi-billion-dollar industry living in American homes, from an endless array of Betta fish varieties to the dainty angelfish and the goldfish brought home after a carnival game victory.

For many years, I was one of the millions of consumers lured in by the appeal of having my very own fish tank. In college, I was gifted with a tetra who looked remarkably like the “Moonrise Pink” variety of GloFish–with one major exception: He didn’t glow.

Miraculously, I loved this fish, whom I named Clapper, just the same, regardless of his slightly less lustrous hue. Clapper traveled with me from dorm room to dorm room, to my first house after graduation, and to my apartment after my relationship with my boyfriend at the time fell apart.

We shared many memories, including one that made my heart skip a beat: Midway through a thorough tank cleaning, I noticed that Clapper was missing from the jug I’d temporarily placed him in. Within a few seconds, I found him–on the floor, wedged between the washing machine and the wall. Somehow, I managed to slowly slide the machine out enough–without crushing the tiny being–and scoop him back into the water before suffocation set in.

I spent every day for months silently apologizing to him. Because I loved him.

I was diligent with his care, and Clapper remained physically healthy up until a couple of days before he passed. He met his expected lifespan of five years–and then some.

Yes, we shared many memories: memories of me crying; memories of me laughing; and, most often, memories of me leaving and coming back again, sometimes with a friend, or a new love, or a new painting.

Every day, though, Clapper stayed there, swimming in circles, silently watching me from behind his glass wall.

I didn’t know the inner toll captivity was taking on this social being for much of his life. I didn’t realize that he was lonely and isolated because tetras need schools to thrive. Or that with only a few artificial plants and rocks to enrich his environment, his life was just a slow, drawn-out death.

Today, most of us have started to question the ethics of confining magnificent mammals like dolphins and whales to the equivalent of a bathtub at marine parks for guests to gawk over. As the Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) explains, films like Blackfish have “challenged people to recognize the cruelty of keeping large, intelligent, and sentient animals in such small tanks.” However, AWI continues, fish are also “sentient—showing far more cognitive abilities than they are given credit for—and few, if any, spend their entire lives in the wild in the volume of water contained in a standard fish tank.”

Remember the fish who used a rock as a tool to crack open his meal? Or the pufferfish who builds an intricate sand sculpture to attract a mate? Fish scientist Dr. Culum Brown states that “it would be impossible for fish to survive as the cognitively and behaviorally complex animals they are without a capacity to feel pain.”  The scientific research for fish complexity and sentience abounds, and in 2018, Smithsonian Magazine (finally) declared, “It’s official: Fish feel pain.”

Gaining traction for the notion of fish as individuals worthy of ethical consideration is an uphill battle, though, especially with outfits like Amazon offering up 1-gallon aquariums (a volume infinitely too small to house any fish species long-term) accompanied by descriptions like, “Compact design fits almost anywhere – perfect for dorm, office or home.”

As my fellow animal advocates and I try to rewrite the public discourse on how we ought to think about our relationships with fish, such captions continue hammering home the message: Fish are decorations, trinkets, objects. We don’t maximize their space for their well-being; we minimize it for our convenience.

And, in the case of our genetically engineered friends: We don’t have to settle for dull fish when we can have spectacularly striking GloFish.

It’s time to embrace fish for who, not what, they are. And we can start by letting them keep their natural colors.

 Petition closed with 499 signatures.

When the Wedding Favors Have Fins

by Laura Lee Cascada, posted in Companions, Rescue

White linens lined the tables, and Barbra Streisand’s voice filled the air. The banquet hall oozed with love. We paid our respects to the bright-eyed newlyweds and took our seats. And that’s when I first saw him.

The glass vase, the centerpiece of it all, confined not flowers, but fins. There he swam, in endless circles, bordered by a ring of porcelain plates and framed by shining silverware like armor.

He watched us exchange pleasantries with our tablemates, the angst-filled silence filling gaps in conversation, and the moment we awkwardly stood for the first dance. He, of course, said nothing.

As I took her hand in mind and swayed my hips to the melody, I saw them all–a dozen more like him–in their own glass jails.

Food was consumed in excess, laughs echoed from the walls, and a young child’s rendition of the Macarena was the talk of the night. Meanwhile, his eyes were opals, relics of an underwater world, captivating my own.

Guests filed out at midnight, clutching the glass vases to their chests. A dozen wedding favors, heading home. Home: a sphere of invisible walls atop a glass counter top, forever.

But he remained. His options quickly became clear: Live at the bar, a fly on the wall behind a parade of drunken sobs and sloppy kisses.

Or… Go home. With us.

The decision was made. He sloshed up and down in his bowl, gaping up at us, as we tiptoed into the night. The drive home was slow–after all, he was delicate cargo.

It wasn’t ideal, his captive life. We set him up in a respectable tank with colors, rocks, obstacles. A taste of a challenge beyond swimming the same curved path day in and day out.

He was mellow, mostly. Curious but not carefree. Bold but modest. And, as expected of a male Betta fish, he was not so fond of his own brilliant reflection.

Then, when fed, he’d get this streak, this fierceness, and he became a vibrant blue sea dragon, mightily conquering his freeze-dried food. He was braver than any human I’ve ever met.

I learned where he came from, probably: Imprisoned in a minuscule plastic bag or container with just enough water to survive. Blue-tinted water, captivating and surreal to a child’s wandering eyes–tranquilizing to him. An additive used to calm Bettas as they endure the trauma of transport over hundreds of miles to their destination: the store shelf.

Roux, as we called him, had some semblance of enrichment, our best attempt to disguise the artificiality of his habitat. But most don’t. They spend their days and months in small vases that limit their access to oxygen, which they breathe in at the water’s surface.

In stagnant water, often deprived of their natural diet of insects, they often perish.

Roux lived with us for more than a year before succumbing to illness. Burying him under our apple tree, we wiped away tears. We planted one of his neon plastic trees as a grave marker. We thought we’d done it right. He could’ve lived to be 5.

But a tank can never be a pond.

And that radiant blue hue–imprinted onto him through years of selective breeding–was never meant to be.

But on that one romantic night, at least he matched the bridesmaids’ dresses.