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Box B13 The ognitive Abilities oo ish 245

VetBooks.ir is a dawn and dusk chorus underwater as ing fish from the wild. There is no doubt,
however, that fish are highly intelligent ani-
there is in terrestrial ecosystems. Experiments
mals and their behaviour suggests they are
using benthic sharks have shown that they
can be trained to associate the sound of bub- sentient. To gain an unbiased account of pain
bles and the arrival of food, but they cannot perception it is wise to turn to evolutionary
associate flashing lights and food (Guttridge theory (Brown 2017). It is clear from com-
and Brown 2014). This is undoubtedly parative physiology and molecular studies
because these sharks do not readily rely on that the pain receptors in humans are almost
vision while foraging so light does not make a identical to those found in fish. This should
very good conditioning stimulus. come as no surprise because we inherited
While fish can also use electroreception to them from our fishy ancestors. Similarly the
sample the world, and even navigate, there is hormones involved in stress responses are
very little by way of research in this area. We very similar across all vertebrates. It would
do know, however, that many species of knife be fair to surmise that pain and stress in all
fish find prey, navigate, and communicate vertebrates is a very similar and highly con-
with one another by sending out pulses of served phenomenon (Brown 2015). While
electricity into the water much in the way there are those who argue that the psycho-
that dolphins use sonar. logical aspect of pain may differ between ani-
The question of whether fish feel pain and mals, this is also highly unlikely since the
respond to stress as we do has been an issue physical detection and emotional response to
of heated debate (Brown 2015). The main pain evolved side‐by‐side with the expressed
reason for the opposition is largely because outcome being the long‐term avoidance of
of the huge commercial interests in harvest- potentially dangerous stimuli (Brown 2015).

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