Local Fish Processor Called Out for Animal Abuse

Animal rights activists decry actions as torture

Commentary
by Bruce Felps

An item published Monday at The Huffington Post called out a Dallas County fish-processing facility, Catfish Corner, for animal abuse and torture.

An outfit out of Chicago called Mercy for Animals came up with hidden-camera video of fish skinned, beheaded or slit open from gullet to tail, all while the fish were still alive.

Those seem like the same steps taken to clean fish by your average weekend angler unless the fish died of suffocation while in the "catch box," and then the only alteration would be removing the phrase "while the fish were still alive."

I gave up on fishing before I hit double digits in age because I don't like killing things. My dad, though, always maintained that fish have no physical feelings.

Now, I'm certainly no ichthyologist, but it seems that fish are biological units and therefore have nervous systems, and nerves+brain=processing pain -- or pleasure, but fish pleasure is a discussion for another day -- and should be afforded a humane death.

Then again, as we're seen with cows, chickens and pigs, humane treatment at the food-processing plant is neither time- nor cost-efficient, right, Bo?


Bruce Felps owns and operates East Dallas Times, an online community news outlet serving the White Rock Lake area. To steal a phrase from the boss-man here, if he had to do his own killing, he’d be a vegetarian … until somebody proved that plants feel pain. Then he'd turn cannibal.


Related Coverage:

Copyright FREEL - NBC Local Media
Contact Us