Fish display a cruel spectacle

The waiter serves up a generous helping of hyperbole with his sales itch as he points to a giant fish in a neon-lit fish tank outside a seafront restaurant in Hong Kong.

"This is a very special fish — it is more than 100 years old," he says, gesturing to the garoupa struggling to turn its metre-long body in the confines of the tank.

"If you want to eat it, it will cost you around HK$500,000 ($78,650). You will need a very big party."

For months, this creature has been on show to passersby, the subject of hundreds of snapshots as it tries to circle in the tank that became its home after decades of cruising in the depths of the Indian Ocean.

Dozens of other large exotic fish are crammed into tanks at seafood restaurants across Hong Kong and Asia.

The taste among Asian diners for exotic fish appears to be recession-proof. Falling fish stocks and rising prices seem to have sharpened people’s appetite for luxury seafood.

However, the increasingly popular practice of enticing customers to restaurants with displays of huge fish in small tanks is troubling animal welfare experts.

The Society for the Protection of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) in Hong Kong has likened it to the way caged leopards or shackled elephants were displayed in the city’s colonial days half a century ago.

SPCA executive director Sandy Macalister said of the display of garoupa in Hong Kong’s restaurants: "These wonderful animals, which since the 1940s have lived and bred in the coral depths, now lie behind thick distorting glass in a narrow tank on the footpath.

"If a passerby or a restaurant patron knew that these magnificent creatures were more than 65 years old, would that make a difference?"

Macalister believes laws should be changed to stop the restaurant displays of big fish in cramped conditions.

"The problem is that until very recently, no one has really understood fish in the same way that no one understands lobsters and crabs," he said.

"In fact they have sophisticated brains, and animal welfare science shows that they are feeling things we never knew they felt.

"Some of those fish you see outside restaurants have probably been around since the 1940s. They are used to swimming around freely in the depths. The next thing they know, they are in a tank on a footpath. It’s cruel and it must be terrifying for them."

According to Macalister, expert research suggests that fish have memories and feelings similar to other animals, so being kept for months or years in a restricted space amounts to a form of torture for the fish.

"The only thing with a fish is it can’t express it," he said. "They learn, and they have memories, and they can identify people. They feel stress and they feel pain. People used to believe fish couldn’t remember anything for longer than three seconds, but we know now that isn’t true."

Marine biologist Yvonne Sadovy of the University of Hong Kong said the notion that fish feel pain and stress was becoming increasingly accepted in academic circles.

"Fish are vertebrates like us. They have a backbone and a lot of the biology and physiology have some similarities to us," she said.

"I think most biologists would say there is absolutely no reason to believe they would not feel pain."

Sadovy described the way large fish are handled in Hong Kong as "pretty awful."

"They are there for the spectacle and to attract people to the businesses.

"They often have abrasions. I guess when they are shipped and often moved over large areas, they get banged around.

"Outside restaurants, I’ve actually seen these fish physically thrown from one net to another."