KAZEY JOURNAL

Is it lonely? I wondered. I mean here is a fish, not sure what breed (I am not an ecologist for goodness sake) alone in an aquarium, in one of the restaurants of my school. Yeah I am wierd, for wondering whether it was lonely. I just had to visualize a world of my own, consisting of only I, living without anybody to talk to. That is consisting of no single specie of my type, or of any other type (in the sense of reffering back to the fiction of the tarzan world). Well so it is. Now this fish has no friend, nobody to play with except for the food.

But then again who knows it might not be bored, its a fish world. Do they have emotions? I wondered too. Ran to google and came out with this result.

Do fish, like humans, experience pain and suffering? People hold very differing beliefs about this question. Some would believe that if fish react to stimuli that would cause a person to feel pain that the fish must also be feeling pain. Others assume that fish are too different from humans for the matter to be of concern. Many people don’t know quite what to think about the issue. Neuroscience research has clarified the neurological and psychological processes that cause the experience of pain, so we can address this question from a large base of factual information.

Source:By Dr. James D. Rose, University of Wyoming in an article titled “Do Fish Feel Pain? “

Hmm I really dont know :(. I mean why all this curiousity, maybe I care for the fish, hehehe funny. Ok well then I went on to google about fishes and loneliness, but I really did not get much of a result. The only one that actually helped a little in educating me, was titled “Alone but Not Lonely-The importance of giving puffers individually“. It said and I quote that

Many fish species throughout the world school or shoal for protection from predators. By staying together in large numbers, these fish are able to reduce the chances of becoming a meal. Sometimes, young Puffers are found in large groups. However, as they mature these Puffers usually go their separate ways. From this point on, Puffers begin to live a solitary life where interaction with conspecifics is usually limited to mating season and the occasional territorial dispute.

It went on and emphasised that

In the aquarium, territory is at a premium. Compared to the rivers, estuaries and open oceans that puffers inhabit in the wild, the aquarium is a very small environment. As a territorial family, Puffers require space to call their own. Introducing more than one Puffer into a tank, especially a tank that is too small, is asking for problems. If two Puffers cannot establish clear territories, they will often fight.

So it might not be lonely afterall? As I said I am not sure what type of fish breed it is just that i know it got this particular swollen head, I didnt bring my camera along to campus, so maybe some other time, I might post the picture.

Well back to my research on puffers,.A puffer fish according to wikipedia is

also called blowfish, swellfish, globefish, balloonfish are fish making up the family Tetraodontidae, within the order Tetraodontiformes. They are named for their ability to inflate themselves to several times their normal size by swallowing water or air when threatened; the same adaptation is found in the closely related porcupinefish, which also have spines (unlike pufferfish).

Interesting isnt it? Besides isnt it a beaty?