I HEART YOU!!
- Thread starter JT
- Start date
dizzy":3ckza3em said:
Well Mitch, that's your opinion and you're certainly entitled to it. 8 years later my child has expressed no regret about it and neither have I - and if she did, leaving earrings out of her ears would reverse the "problem" without any permanent damage, or noticible cosmetic scars. A tattoo on the other hand would take great pain and expense to undo - so perhaps in that regard we're making unfair comparisons between a couple of pinholes in a human's earlobes with injecting dye under an organism's skin - human or otherwise.
Also, a little girl's decision to wear earrings hardly merits a comparison to Jonbenet Ramsey and I find that comparison offensive.
Are you suggesting I pressured my child into wanting this done? If you are then I submit that you're wrong about that too. Of course you don't really know me or my children - perhaps you know someone else who pressured their kid, I dunno...
I still maintain there is a huge difference between an organism with the power of conscious decision choosing to adorn (or deface) their own body, versus an organism that does not have the power of choice to decide if it wants to be indellibly marked in this way.
I guess my biggest beef is that people actually buy this stuff. It is their ignorance that drives this "market" and that is what I find to be the most disturbing - and that people in the trade fuel that fire.
Jenn
Righty":3e0e1a3f said:
I roll my eyes at lots of things.
I wasn't suggesting that there be regulations for tatooing fish. I was stating that the care and upkeep of food animals is regulated. While I don't find conditions to always be "ideal", there are standards in place for that, and they are enforced. Since the animals are eventually ingested by people, agencies tend to keep a closer eye on such things, than they do for "pet" creatures.
Well at least we agree on it setting a poor tone for the hobby - perhaps your opinion and mine aren't that far removed from one another, we just approach it differently.
I've struggled with that question also. However in the bigger picture, hobbyists have done a lot of anecdotal "research" into the animals they keep, and much has been learned by those of us who "want it". I maintain there's a big difference between keeping creatures in their natural state, in artificial environments, and engineering creatures in a completely unnatural way, because we "want it". Educated hobbyists attempt to recreate, to the best of their ability, a small piece of the environment that their organisms come from. No we can't recreate an ocean environment (or a river, lake or stream) exactly, but to at least have a setting that bears resemblence to what that creature came from, is one thing. To alter an animal so that it would be unrecognizable to its wild counterpart, IMO is wrong.
Again, this is just my opinion. And yes, it is an interesting discussion.
Jenn
naesco":uefnqouq said:
No need to be disrespectful, Wayne, just because Righty's opinion differs from yours. He's entitled to it, just as you are entitled to your opinion. If you care to challenge it, why not offer an intelligent argument to the contrary? That's what makes for an interesting discussion and that is how you can perhaps sway someone to your school of thought - by offering up some intelligent insight and substantial material to support your way of thinking.
Calling somebody a poopy-head won't win you any arguments.
And if you think I'm going to tell *you* who the vendor is, then YOU are the one who is "out to lunch". I'm sure if you were in the trade, you'd have had access to this information delivered right to your own email box, and could do whatever you choose with it. Oh wait - you aren't in the trade... :roll: While I have a moral objection to what the vendor is doing and selling, they aren't doing anything illegal. My giving that infomation to you would only give you a chance to make a fool out of yourself to them, and perhaps expose yourself to litigation - let's just say I'm saving you from yourself in this instance
You can thank me later Jenn
Jenn,
My message is more about tolerance for other people and the choices they make in their lives. Judge not, that you be not judged. We live in an increasingly diversified society and it is not possible to have this one size fits all sense of morality any more. I look around me and I see plenty of things I don't always understand or agree with. In the scheme of things the painted fish question is a non-starter for me. Righty is right in that fishkeeping is for our personal pleasure and not done for the welfare of the fish. The harsh reality in this business is that no matter how ethical we might personally be, we lose all control once the animals go out the door. So if you choose not to sell the hippie parrot fish good for you. If kalk decides he does want to sell them, then good for him too.
My message is more about tolerance for other people and the choices they make in their lives. Judge not, that you be not judged. We live in an increasingly diversified society and it is not possible to have this one size fits all sense of morality any more. I look around me and I see plenty of things I don't always understand or agree with. In the scheme of things the painted fish question is a non-starter for me. Righty is right in that fishkeeping is for our personal pleasure and not done for the welfare of the fish. The harsh reality in this business is that no matter how ethical we might personally be, we lose all control once the animals go out the door. So if you choose not to sell the hippie parrot fish good for you. If kalk decides he does want to sell them, then good for him too.
bookfish":10f18rcu said:
I do carry a few "mixed fancy guppies" and a few goldfish. Personally I'm repulsed by bubble eyes and telescopes, but I have brought in a few when asked... bubble eyes give me the willies and I hate to look at them, let alone handle them
Most of the goldfish I carry are either feeder comets or koi, with a few calicos and fantails - nothing terribly exotic - my customers haven't asked for that with the exception of aforementioned telescopes and bubble eyes.And yeah, there's a moral dilemma there too - creatures (in)bred for genetic traits.. but I draw the line at "artwork" injected into fish. I won't carry "glowfish" either - those DNA-tampered danios that were all the rage a couple of years ago.
I guess that's where my comfort zone is. Selective breeding, while it is somewhat objectionable, I guess is "OK"... hard to find guppies that aren't selectively bred - in fact just about any farmed freshwater fish has been selectively bred. I guess I file tattoed and dyed fish in my personal "verboten" section - that's over *my* line.
Jenn
Apples and oranges. Those fish are bred selectively to produce the desired effect.
If these people were able to breed these parrots with whatever saying they wanted to appear, that's one thing. But these fish obviously have to be physcially restrained while an etcher is poured onto them to produce the phrases.
I can see why they wouldn't want to breed them though. Have to start with 26 different fish and breed them in the right order. Then what if the breeder was dyslexic and got half way through Happy Halloween and then accidently spelled it Helloween? Oh the horror, a years time wasted and he'd have to start all over again with an H fish. :lol:
If these people were able to breed these parrots with whatever saying they wanted to appear, that's one thing. But these fish obviously have to be physcially restrained while an etcher is poured onto them to produce the phrases.
I can see why they wouldn't want to breed them though. Have to start with 26 different fish and breed them in the right order. Then what if the breeder was dyslexic and got half way through Happy Halloween and then accidently spelled it Helloween? Oh the horror, a years time wasted and he'd have to start all over again with an H fish. :lol:
I just hope they don't start using a similar process to touchup the pattern on expensive Japanese koi. Remove a small spot of color here, or sharpen the leading edges on patterns and a $500 koi might appear to be worth a couple of grand. It would be quit possible to put a perfect Tancho (red dot on the head) on a plain white koi. Sometimes even a high quality Tancho Kohaku can actually lose the natural red dot if they are stressed. Given that koi colors can change as they grow it would be hard for the average hobbyist to even realize they had been had. While I doubt the Japanese would resort to such a tactic, it wouldn't surprise me a bit to see koi coming from some of the other Far East koi producing countries colorized in the future . It could happen in this country too. I think kalk raises a few koi. :wink:
Mitch
Mitch
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