what is the most humane way to kill a fish

[jallard]

awww just wing em in the woods for the varments

J/K never had to worry about this yet...interesting thread

[WILDTHING]

Originally posted by greenman
Thats just Wrong!

No its not. It was probably difficult for Ericp to do but the fish was probably dead in moments instead of suffering a slow death. Sometimes the most humane thing you can do is help the end come quickly.

Because of what I do I see a lot of animals that I wish it was possible to save but its just not. So the only way I can help at that moment is to be quick with what needs to be done. Its not easy but its the only kindness that the situation allows.

colleen

[mungus]

I'm with you on that one colleen!

[scorp1on]

Cats?

[jgoodrich71]

I've always put the fish in a fish bag filled with water, then put this into the freezer. This way the fish does not sufficate while waiting for its metabolism to stop. Never heard of the clove oil before, though, that might be something to try in the future.

[epidemic]

What

if a ocean is near by just toss the little guy back to its home

What in the hell are you thinking???????
Thats absurd! Ok so your fish is unhelthy so you release it into a ecosystem where id doesn't belong?
Think eur-asian milfoil, or zebra clams.

[EmergencyDpt]

Put 'em in a blender. The bassmaster.

[onereefnotenuf]

i have kept fw fish since i was 8-9 years old. when i was about 12 i got an oscar. this fish would not eat live goldfish(at first) so i had to find a way to kill the fish without distorting it or poisoning it. of course prepared food would have been the smart thing to do but i was thinking this fish is a predator so it will get fresh meat. the way that worked best for killing goldfish is as follows: 1.unscrew an incandescent light bulb from it's socket.
2. place goldfish in socket.
3. turn the switch.
4. turn off quickly due to "cooking"
I do not reccomend this practice due to obvious fire hazards involved.
i am sure other than the brief period out of water, the goldfish did not suffer.
just as an aside, the oscar wouldn't eat the dead goldfish either, but it took about a half dozen fish to come to that conclusion.
for obvious reasons this isn't a story i have told too often!

[DeeZeal]

Some how I don't think cooking them alive is the most humane way of killing them but I liked the step-by-step procedure.

[ONEMANBAND]

I just feed them to my aggressive tank, nothings faster than a combined wrass, trigger, eel attack. Protein gets out Protein.

[ReeferAl]

Originally posted by scorp1on
Cats?

I think the freezer works for them too.





JK

[Guelphie]

Originally posted by scorp1on
Cats?


Originally posted by ReeferAl
I think the freezer works for them too.
JK

Too funny...

[Runner]

I've always placed them in a bowl of water and floated a bunch of ice cubes in the top. Then again, I've only done this with freshwater fish. I've never had to take care of a saltwater critter like this before.

[racer69]

Clove oil.

[Matthew A.]

I have found a quick and powerful crushing of the skull works well. It's one of the quickest ways to bring quick death to endoskeleton organisms if it can be performed in tenths or less of a second. It sounds cruel and murderous but it does the task. Everytime I have to utilize this method to bring about a quick and hopefully painless death to an unfortunate organism, I am saddened that a life has been lost and by my hand. Such is the burden of being human.

[deeporl]

I'd say freezing is most defintly not humane. I think it is a common answer but use some logic. Cold-blooded animals have to regulate their body tempatures. Unlike mammels who body takes care of it for them. So they have to be more sensitive to heat/cold. They need their bodies to be a certian temp when they feel that the temp isn't right they must move to a different location. I know people don't think of fish this way but snakes and lizards are cold-blooded too and we all know a snake will go from the shade to sun if it gets too cold and vica versa. Fish behave in the same mannor. As well as a saltwater enthusiast I'm a fisherman (I eat my fish I don't catch and release please don't flame PM me if you have issue with fishermen and I'll explain my reasoning behind it) I know being a fishermen if its hot out like now I'm better off fishing deep. Why? The fish know they are hot and they go deeper to cool themselves off. So freezing I would say while easiest on the human is not on the fish. Mammals shiver to create heat when we get cold the fish probably has everything in it telling it it needs to find more warmth. Sounds horrible to me. Plus I would venture that they probably sufficate before they freeze so you might as well just throw it out of the tank. While the crushing it with tire/rolling pin sounds unpleasant as long as you started at the head you would crush its brain and that would end it right there. The clove oil sounds reasonable too. As long as the fish dies quickly I would assume it would be like a person walking in to a room filled with carbon monoxide they would die and not realize it. Electricution and or cooking is defintly out of the question. So in my humble opion put freezing at the bottom and if you can handle it crushing at the top or maybe clove oil.

[Nuhtty]

Decapitation.

All higher vertebrates need the brain in order to process painful stimuli.

Freezing is the method of choice for people using fish for experimental purposes...it is the only guaranteed way of killing a fish without dismembering or deforming the fishs tissues. Also, it is the best way to kill them without introducing foreign chemicals to their body which may affects laboratory studies, depending on what you are doing with the animal.

So...freezing isnt the most humane method at all...it is simply the best way to kill a fish that needs to remain intact.

Decapitation is the fastest and most humane way of euthanasia for any higher vertebrate.

[deedo]

Originally posted by Nuhtty
Decapitation.

All higher vertebrates need the brain in order to process painful stimuli.

I have to disagree. Decapitation is no longer a sanctioned method of execution because the brain is the organ that processes painfull stimuli. It can do this fine without a body untill it runs out of oxygen. This can take several minutes (in a human at least.)
The following is conjecture:
A severed arm can cause pain for the rest of the amputees life due to severed root ganglia firing away. The brain of a decapatee will be receiving massive signals from the clusters of severed ganglia. Amputees report an sensations from intesnse burning to itching in the affected limb, a decapatee will be likely to feel this over his/her whole body.



I guess the bottom line is that while the body needs the brain to process painfull stimuli the brain does not need the body to generate it. A decapitated animal will be in intense pain untill the brain suffocates. I don't think anyone can tell us for sure how long this takes in a fish.

[Nuhtty]

deedo

While I agree with your assessment that the brain can still process information without a body I must say that the brain quickly loses the ability to function after only a few seconds without oxygen.

This is evident in medical patients who quickly lose consciousness after short periods of oxygen deprivation either by suffocation or exsanguination.

Consciousness is a lower brainstem function (as is pain perception) so therefore as the ability to maintain consciousness is lost, so is the ability to percieve pain.

The only way that a decapitated person (or fish) would perceive pain for an extended period of time is if vascular structures were somehow left intact.

[Runner]

Freezing is new to me, but "icing" in a bowl of water seems to be quite painless. They don't struggle or even try to jump out. Just slowly stop swaying. This method has been advocated in the freshwater world as the most pain-free and considerate method of "offing" your fish.

[Cluckr7]

IMO, since fish are cold blooded, freezing would be a good method of euthanasia. Their metabolism just slows down to a halt. They die before the water gets anywhere close to freezing. Freezing would be horribly painful for warm-blooded animals, but i think rather painless for cold-blooded animals. Just my opinion based on my logic, Not based on any scientific articles or anything.

[Mickey]

I'm going to pick up some Clove Oil to have on hand, "just in case", and hope I never need it.

How much clove oil is needed? A few drops in a quarter of tank water???? Where to buy it?

Mickey

[Matthew A.]

Consciousness is a lower brainstem function (as is pain perception) so therefore as the ability to maintain consciousness is lost, so is the ability to percieve pain.

That's exactly why a quick stomp used in combination with the sole of heavy boot works best in my opinion. Take away the fishes mechanism that interprets certain nerve impulses as "pain" at the same moment one also disables the fishes neural functions reqired to process those impulses into feedback so they can be analized properly, and "pain" is adverted.

[Hockeyben51]

I think the quickest way to get it over is to take a bucket of water throw in a block of dry ice and the fish will be numbed and no pain can come to him however you dispose of him.

[footclanskates]

There's no way I could do the rolling pin, or any other similar method. I know it's got to be easier on the fish, but I wouldn't be able to bring myself to do it. If the fish is just injured (no disease) I usually feed it to my piranhas