My frend's dad's friend, (or maby it was my friend's dad's friend's friend:confused: ) is well... loaded. and since my friends dad (or maby my friend's dad's friend) breeds what i believe to be sepia officianalis, the loaded guy boaght adult, and extremely expensive, sepia officionalis to put in his heated saline pool for a party. what did he do after the party you may ask? he GOT RID OF THEM:shock: :shock: . how i do not know though.

if he kept them though i'm not sure if that would be entirely ethical

And yes i know that such a source as "my friend's dad's friend" may not be exactly accurate.

Sepia Officionalis is commonly eaten, keeping one decoratively for a fewdaysis not unethical, now had he been doing that with something like a leafy sea dragon the story would be different.

Getting something to show off for a party and then getting rid of it is highly unethical.

Kinda like raising a beautiful Pit Bull just so it can be torn to pieces in a fight.

Comparing this to dog fighting doesn't make sense. He was not buying this animal to injure it, just as a decoration. I would say what he did with it after would decide how ethical it was (did he throw it in a dumpster? did he eat it (I wouldn't consider eating it unethical BTW) ) I do believe it was pompous and stupid to buy an animal because it looked good without an idea as to how to care for it. It also borders on the line of unethical for me, but not quite. Of course, ethics are a touchy subject and no 2 people outlook on it are the same.

Dan

Bob reported that this fellow breeds them, so chances arethat he sent them to a good place.

My point was, living creatures are not toys and should not be treated as such. That is vanity for ya though.

Its very hard for me to see the difference between renting a captive raised animal for a party and eating a bunch of captive raised animals at a party.

Diff? Well.....ummm....one is dead, and one isn't. Actually I believe it goes a little deeper than that. Food. Things are easier to mentally digest (HAHAHA) when they are food. They are dead, and they are meant for consumption. There meats are not going to waste, so i don't particularly see a problem with eating a captive bred animal. Not endangered. besides, by keeping an animal you don't know about for decoration, you are putting that animal at risk, and could be putting it in a particularly harmful situation, and since it is alive it is wrong. I believe I don't find this highly unethical because while the intent was stupid, the actions didn't hurt anything. That is an unusual stance for me because I often find myself more dependant on intent rather than action, but morals are a very confusing ground so there is little point into thinking about it way too much....

Dan

The animals we eat weren't always dead, and they way they are kept until they are killed seems exponentially more disturbing than what was proportedly done to the cuttlefish above. They way food animals are killed leaves a lot to be desired as well. It is also worth mentioning that the amount of food that is thrown away after a big party is massive, which means that lots of animals are going to waste.

As a society we tend ignore what happens to billions of food animals because we really want to eat them cheaply while we focus on what does happen to a few more visible animals. It seems to me that if its ok to treat captive bred food animals so terribly, then it seems it should be ok to treat other captive bred animals less terribly (and this is avoiding the entire discussion of using captive bred cephs as research animals or the million plus domestic dogs and cats that are killed each week and then destroyed).

It think ethics discussions are critical to the world as a whole and I don't think they happen enough. I think that ethics can be confusing and there is great benefit to the world in thinking about it too much, but thats my education talking. :D

So what is the difference between keeping them in a tank their whole lives to have the be happy and beautiful or keeping them in a tank for several months to be happy and beautiful, then moving them to a pool for a few days to be happy and beautiful, then moving them to a tank again to be happy and beautiful? Are you arguing that its unethical to move them? Or that there beuaty should not be shared at a party, when ever I have friends over I show ff my tank, should I be covering it up? I actually moved my clams to impress people who came over for a party once, does the 15 Degree tilt I put on them make me a bad person because of it?

But the odds are that his "saline pool" did not meet the requirements for keeping the cuttles. The pool most likely wasn't kept cool enough, and the "partiers" probably harassed the poor things, and swam with them, and poured beer into the pool, etc. When people get drunk...well, you know.

I'm assuming that the "saline pool" was a swimming pool? If so then it probably contained chlorine to keep it looking pretty, not nice to live in I should think.

J

I'm assuming that the "saline pool" was a swimming pool? If so then it probably contained chlorine to keep it looking pretty, not nice to live in I should think.

J

There's some weird trend around here of using "saline pools" instead of "chlorinated pools" lately... It's not clear why they think salt water will be as effective as chlorine or bromine at killing pathogens; "safe for swimming" seems to be at odds with "appropriate salinity for cuttles"-- from this link: http://www.salinepoolsystems.com/learn_more.htm (take with a grain of salt [sic] as it's a sales pitch) it sounds like it's way less salt than marine levels, and there's a device that splits the NaCl into just Cl somehow (I didn't read far enough to see what happens to the sodium part) providing chlorination in some "better" way. I would hope that if one were putting cuttles in, one would turn off the salt-splitting gadget and leave it long enough for the chlorine to outgas, and get the salinity up to seawater. However, it'd still be an uncycled, unfiltered (albeit large) tank, so it wouldn't be healthy for them for long...

ok first of all i know several people with these saline pools....

the salinity is only around .001 not even close enough to keep saltwater inverts including cuttles alive...

second... they also add alot of other chemicals that keep the algea down that kills everything including frogs so i doubt that a cuttle could have survived...

so in my opinion stupid waste of money and a perfectly good cuttle... next time your dads friend wants to do something like that just have him send them to me instead

If the initial story in the first post actually happened. :grin:

If the guy really is a cuttle breeder he knows all this, also a cuttle fish would not survive long in a fresh water sytem, like they would look half dead after 5 minutes.

A fish might be able to survive several hours in a freshwater pool, but no invert would last more than a half hour, an hour if you're lucky.

But the odds are that his "saline pool" did not meet the requirements for keeping the cuttles. The pool most likely wasn't kept cool enough, and the "partiers" probably harassed the poor things, and swam with them, and poured beer into the pool, etc. When people get drunk...well, you know.

well there were some kids at the party. so i don't think the adults would be so reckless as to get wasted. they did swim with them though.

also mabe i should clarify. the guy who had the cuttles at his party was not the breeder. he bought the cuttlefish from a friend of my friend's dad. then invited my friend and his dad and the breeder

We've established that it's a saline pool though.

If you're trying to make the point that it was high enough salinity for them, there are several other risk factors in this situation. Contact the guy, ask him what happened, then we'll figure this out without making assumptions...

I really wouldn't be too sure. Maybe the kids' parents didn't get wasted, but i'm sure there was alcohol there...

In a standard swimming pool even a few gallons of ever clear wouldn't do much.

I would contact the breeder rather than the guy if anyone, it doesn't reallymatter, it happened (or didn't) and its over.

also, the fact that we all are Cuttlefish lovers here probably hurts our objectivity.

we need to remember that our object of affection is still seen as nothing more then a tasty snack to most of the world and a disposable resource.

I personally would never eat a Ceph after what I have learned about them. but now that I think about it some of our practices with our farm animals are pretty mean..... there is a slipery slope here.

you have a point bigred. ethics are all about what the culture believes is right. the canibals of old didn't see anything wrong with what they did. So the ethics of what i like to think of as our own subculture might differ from that of the mainstream.

I think its hypocritical to view an animal you fancy in a higher light than an animal that you don't, what makes an animal worthy of ethical considerations are the fact that it is alive and thinking and the environmental impact it has.

Bigred,

Why wouldn't your eat squid?

Bigred,

Why wouldn't your eat squid?

well besides the fact that I have always had a queasy stomach when it comes to shellfish. :hmm: ?

It is just that after seeing stories about how intelligent they are, I don't think I could bring my self to eat one. and yes I know that some farm animals are pretty smart too (pigs for one)..... like I said, it is hard to be objective.... hence what I said about the slippery slope.

not to mention the fact that I don't like eating things that are still looking back at me. ( I am not sure that is how squid is usually prepared but from what I have seen with other ceph's they still are in one piece. )

I have actually never eaten squid or octopus before, ( except for some squid flavored crackers I tryed from a asian market one time )

I am not sure that is how squid is usually prepared but from what I have seen with other ceph's they still are in one piece.

at the resteraunts i've been to they are generally served boiled or fried with only the tentacles. (no mantle accept for the siphon which they included)

Opcn,

Face it. If you saw someone in the park today step on a grasshopper, you'd walk on by. If you saw that same person stomp on a kitten, you'd stop to give that person an earful (or possibly a fistful).

I hate Cats, however this fits with what I postulated that there value comes form their life, intelligence, and ecological importance. A grasshopper fits one and three but not two. and three is a minor matter that goes both ways (grasshoppers can be a plauge)

Opcn,

Face it. If you saw someone in the park today step on a grasshopper, you'd walk on by. If you saw that same person stomp on a kitten, you'd stop to give that person an earful (or possibly a fistful).

I think telling other people what they would really do in a situation is not a good way to make a point, often turns out to be incorrect, and strikes me as dismissive/rude. Just because you think one way is no reason to think others think the same. For instance, I had a discussion just the other day with someone stomping on bugs in a park.

at the resteraunts i've been to they are generally served boiled or fried with only the tentacles. (no mantle accept for the siphon which they included)

I don't believe that's the siphon. The rings in fried calamari are from the mantle.

I didn't mean "him", but rather most people.

I didn't mean "him", but rather most people.

Brock, I have a problem using "correct" or proper English when discussing issues with people. One of my best friends gets really irritated when I say "You wouldn't/would" (meaning "a person wouldn't/would") so I know what you intended to say, but yes, try and correct yourself so as to get out of that bad habit.

Out of curiosity I actually tried an Octopus Roll about an hour ago at a Sushi Bar. It was only a slice of an arm, about 4 inches long. Thin, like a potato peal, with some suckers on it. I must say it wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either. The creature now served me as nourishment. Purpose. Not thrown into some curious but less than capable hobbyists fish tank to die a tragic meaningless death.

As for another part of this discussion, I will wrap a spider up in a paper towel and release it outside. I will walk around ants on the sidewalk if I'm paying attention. This might seem like odd behavior to some, but I feel that all living things serve a purpose be it fungus, bacteria, banana or cuttlefish, and I prefer to make as little impact on the world around me as possible.

Keeping an animal for entertainment, be it genuine desire to observe and interact, is very much different from placing it in an unfit environment just for the sh*ts and giggles of your guests, later to be discarded.

That's just my take on the topic. Agree or disagree, we all have our own free will, but we also must take into consideration the impact of our actions on the world around us, and the influence our actions have on swaying the future decisions of others around us.

Done.

I didn't mean "him", but rather most people.

I wish you had said that. :grin:

If you had, I still would have disagreed. Most people wouldn't say a thing to someone stomping a cat, generally because people don't want the attention of someone who would do such a thing turned to them (but there are other reasons as well).

[quote]As for another part of this discussion, I will wrap a spider up in a paper towel and release it outside. I will walk around ants on the sidewalk if I'm paying attention. This might seem like odd behavior to some, but I feel that all living things serve a purpose be it fungus, bacteria, banana or cuttlefish, and I prefer to make as little impact on the world around me as possible.

I feel/do the same. :grin:

Keeping an animal for entertainment, be it genuine desire to observe and interact, is very much different from placing it in an unfit environment just for the sh*ts and giggles of your guests, later to be discarded.

That's just my take on the topic. Agree or disagree, we all have our own free will, but we also must take into consideration the impact of our actions on the world around us, and the influence our actions have on swaying the future decisions of others around us.

Done

Thats the interesting part of this discussion! I don't think it is that cut and dry. I'd love to explore it more, its the ethics addict in me, but some people don't enjoy that kind of conversation (even more so over the internet). The 'done' suggests to me that you might feel that way (which is fine!), so out of respect I'll drop it unless I hear from you.

I apologize to any whom I may have offended. I should have corrected myself sooner!

I agree with you Animal Mother and Thales, but I would most certainly say something to someone stomping a cat, even if others wouldn't. That is irrelevant though, but just saying...:)

No offense! Just trying to be clear!

I am glad you would say something to someone you think was stomping on a cat!

I wouldn't because if they are stomping on a cat they will probably be in a bad mood (I would hope), but I would mention it to whomever I am with. I do consider myself pretty shy though. If I felt up to it I would call the cops or something about it.

[QUOTE=Animal Mother;97694]


I feel/do the same. :grin:



Thats the interesting part of this discussion! I don't think it is that cut and dry. I'd love to explore it more, its the ethics addict in me, but some people don't enjoy that kind of conversation (even more so over the internet). The 'done' suggests to me that you might feel that way (which is fine!), so out of respect I'll drop it unless I hear from you.

Well, perhaps we can start with a persons motivation. Then intention. Then the final result of the involved action/s. Tons of factors go into a persons code of ethics and all the gray area between "wrong" and "right". I don't want to force any of my ideas down anyones throat, but at the same time I feel responsible for defending what I feel is "right".

For example. I respect you deeply for being able to take care of Fontanelle regardless of the reputation for the species. From my perspective you made an educated, mature decision because you have done your homework and you are in a position to contribute the necessary care involved. You took a chance but your knowledge, competence and commitment have paid off.

Some other people will go into that situation more blindly and less informed, and/or less capable as well, and when the animal dies, they likely won't have a clue why. Or they will possibly disregard all warning and dive in, with full understanding of what they're getting into all the while knowing or denying the fact that they don't have the necessary means of successfully doing such. "But hey, oh well, I'll just buy another one..." is all too often the attitude too many people have. Whether that's wrong or right is up to the person making that call I suppose. Conviction.

I personally break it down to "do unto others" and that rule applies to animals too.

I apologize to any whom I may have offended. I should have corrected myself sooner!

I agree with you Animal Mother and Thales, but I would most certainly say something to someone stomping a cat, even if others wouldn't. That is irrelevant though, but just saying...:)

I would most likely stomp the person stomping the cat. Unless the person explained the cat was rabid and attacking them. Then hey, defend yourself by all means.

If you can't tell I'm not tolerant of mistreating others, especially animals.

Hahahaha.

I could see that on the news...

"Today, a rabid cat attacks an innocent man at a local park...witnesses say he stomped the cat while others watched in horror..."

Lol

I could ramble on about food and ethics all day, especially when it comes to "ethical treatment" of to-be-on-the-table animals.

Thats why I find intent to be a sticky idea.
If we go on intent, the treatment of animals in factory farming is ok, the treatment of animals in regular farming is ok, eating brains from a living monkey is ok, and force feeding geese and cow calfs is ok all because we intend on using their bodies for nutrition. To connect back to the beginning of this thread, if the people at the pool party ate the cuttlefish at the end of the party, would people feel its treatment was justified?

This whole subject makes me think of "Of Mice And Men".

i think that the major factor that determines how much we should consider the animal ethically is its intelligence. a plant or bacterium is inconsiquential because they have absolutely no inteligence (just stimulus and response), but something even as inteligent as a worm should not be tortured. then again you would have to take into account what killing or torturing one "inconsequential" animal would have on another animal. sadly though as was posted before. most cultures vew our tentacled friends as tasty snacks and desposable mindless creatures not capable of pain.

I have eaten so many exotic meats. Alligator, Buffulo, venisin. but i would never condemn any of those animals to a slow, stressful death.

I guess my point is that no animal with a drop of intelligence or the capacity to feel pain should be tortured wether your going to eat them or not.

How do you define 'intelligence', 'capacity to feel pain' and 'torture' and 'stressful death'.

There was (and still is in some places) in NZ a tradition of cooking rock lobster by dropping them live into a pot of boiling water on the premise that they didn't feel pain. This barbaric practice is, on the whole, on the wain although I believe some die-hards still use it. The animal has a sensory nervous system which reacts to "unpleasant stimuli" therefore in my mind should never be treated in anyway other than humanely, I would prefer that all our meat animals should be treated as such.


BTW someone mentioned (can't find where) that we have the teeth of an herbivore, we don't, we have the teeth of an omnivore, we lack both the extreme canines of a carnivore and the extreme flat grinding molars of an herbivore, we also lack the gut bacteria of an herbivore!!! Thus we are designed to eat a mix of foods.

Oh and no I don't eat cephs.....I can't stand seafood......and I'm not a vegetarian (I'm allergic to legumes and couldn't get a properly balanced diet as a vegetarian or vegan)

My :twocents: !

J

Don't forget that matters can always get more complicated. Here's an example :

I like spiders because I don't like flies and the other things they keep down.
However I'm mildly arachnaphobic and the little suckers uttterly freak me out.

So:
I will normally happily leave them alone to climb over the walls and ceiling. If I really want to remove one (probably because it's big) I'll use paper/dustpan/etc.
BUT, if one should happen to drop on me or I suddenly discover ones sitting on my shoulder it's life expectancy becomes very, very low. I feel no guilt when this happens.

Am I acting ethically? No freaking idea.

Now what if this was a more intelligent (depending of how you define intelligence) species like a cuttle (I'm sure some people must be freaked out by them)?

I stepped on a scorpion when I was a child. It felt like my foot had been slammed on with a large hammer. However when my uncle discovered what had stung me, I begged him not to kill it. My fault for stepping on it. It had merely defended itself, as nature had embedded the instinct in it to do.

I laugh at people who call snakes and bats and spiders and the like "evil". They all serve a higher purpose than most of those people want to understand. It's often not those creatures who impose threat upon us, but quite the opposite. At the Dallas aquarium the other day there were a group of girls chattering about "I hate snakes!" and I asked them if they like rodents. Of course they looked at me puzzled.

In a matter of self-defense I'd say "survival of the fittest"... I used an insect bomb in my garage once I found a Black Widow with an eggsack attached to my garage wall. There are too many cracks and crevices for them to live without me knowing about them, and I'm not going to risk my own nor my girlfriends, or our dogs being bit by a highly venomous spider. Had it been any other spider (with the exception of Brown Recluse) I would have allowed it to stay. I find this no different than using heartworm preventative on my dogs that also kills fleas and ticks.

That of course is a discussion of threat and safety, and as far as I'm aware, Cuttles aren't any threat to our safety, and if they are, it's because we are imposing upon their territory.

I almost completely agree with you animal mother. i am by no means an environmentalist, and while I think that it would be nice to see some other animals besides us on this earth 300 years from now, i also understand that life in it's entirety is nothing but a cut throught competition between different species. some will form aliances and others will become competitors. Most will face extinction, or the species that decend from them will. It's the harsh reality of addaption and evolution. Survival of the fitest.

Anybody see the "barbaric practises" that KFC does to it's Chicken? Well, it's still food. I don't see what all the outrage is about. I don't see many people arguing over whether or not cows or any other commonly soon-to-be-food-item animal feel pain at the slaughter house, because they obviously do.
If putting a rock lobster in a pot is considering cruel, what about shellfish..like...oyster shooters? It's not like they don't react, it's just that they response is limited to "Quiver" becuase they neither have legs nor hands. Then we have the classic rats, if rats feel pain to such a high degree, then no matter what trouble they cause, they should be left alone, but the truth is that we don't.

Being on top of the food chain but feeling setinmental is hard, thank god peas don't have dreams.

chrono_ware01,
During my lifetime there was a popular belief that plants felt emotions and even pain. Some people went so far as to play music to their house plants. No, there are no 100 percent safe waters.

I totally agree, chances are, no matter what you say: there will be at least one person on this planet that will be offended by it.:roll:

A food item is a food item is a food item is not a pet. Being sentimental to that meat loaf is not going to make you enjoy it any better or make it come back to life wanting to cuddle you.
I just had the weirdest conversation with somebody from PETA the other day, he was discussing the barbaric practises of slaughterhouses while happily sitting at some dinner eating spring chicken, declaring that "You see, this chicken is cooked, so it has no feelings, but the live chickens do."

As a general rule PETA people are selfish and rude people who care more about telling you how to live your life than actually stopping animal cruelty. The Human society is a much better organization in almost every conceivable way.

Its sort of subjective to view food animals lower on the totem pole than pets for treatment. If doing something to a food animal makes the experience better and is moral than doing the same something to a pet should be moral if it makesthe experience better.

chrono_ware01,
During my lifetime there was a popular belief that plants felt emotions and even pain. Some people went so far as to play music to their house plants. No, there are no 100 percent safe waters.

The interesting thing is that studies conducted with plants in 3 different greenhouses, with all other conditions being equal, were played piped in music for the same number of hours each day. One greenhouse got rock, one got easy listening, one got Mozart and Bach. The rock plants were stunted and didn't do well, the easy listening plants did somewhat better, and the Mozart- Bach plants grew like crazy. Wonder what would have happened if they had played nothing but :diamond_trans:? Probably instant death! :sagrin:

Sorseress,
We are letting our age show just talking about playing music to plants. :wink: I always wondered how true that rumor was but there was not SNOPES to confirm or deny the test and results. Come to think of it there was no internet... actually there were no home computers :twisted: How did we survive :confused:

Well. there were books. I had one of those that detailed the findings of that study. Books were sheets of paper with printing on both sides that were bound together to keep them in order. You held them in your hand and turned the sheets of paper (called pages) and read the words printed on them. Instead of using a mouse to control the flow of words you actually had to physically turn the pages over. How totally archaic! (Kind of like me).
Attention Tony! We still don't have our old fogey smiley! :razz:

Books! All that new-fangled technology just ruined everything. Once they came out with those fancy books of yours, the kids never bothered to memorize the Iliad and Odyssey any more 'cause they could just "read" it in one of those "books" of yours. No respect for tradition. Bah, humbug.

I just have to work on smileys for an old fogey and a devils advocate soon. I've been thinking on it but the cloud won't make a defined shape in my head.

During my lifetime there was a popular belief....

Are you sure you don't mean 'During my lifetime there has been...'? 'Was' seems just a little past tense for someone refering to thier own lifetime......

I seem to recall a program someone made that used the whole 'trees talk to each other' theme. I believe at one point they took to dropping branches on someone they didn't like.

I'm sure there are plenty of people today who talk to thier plants to make them grow better. I think I've heard of studies that prove that this works. Of course I've heard of studies that 'proved' all sorts of things :wink:

Gettng a bit more back on track, given that we probably have the technology, or at least could probably develop it if there was incentive, I'm rather surprised that no group has emerged saying that morally we should only eat food that has been synthesised from the ground up from base components. Think of the food in sci-fi films like 2001 "Oh yummy today were having the orange squares with the green paste, my favourite"

Are you sure you don't mean 'During my lifetime there has been...'? 'Was' seems just a little past tense for someone refering to thier own lifetime......
"

I meant to infer that the practice was a fad that disappeared rather than suggesting a time when anemones and humans were closely related :tongue:

^Hahahahahahah!!!^

*Not to be rude, just thought it was funny*

Well. there were books. I had one of those that detailed the findings of that study. Books were sheets of paper with printing on both sides that were bound together to keep them in order. You held them in your hand and turned the sheets of paper (called pages) and read the words printed on them. Instead of using a mouse to control the flow of words you actually had to physically turn the pages over. How totally archaic! (Kind of like me).
Attention Tony! We still don't have our old fogey smiley! :razz:

Here you go (I think I qualify as an old fogey sometimes...).

:roflmao:

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Cuttlegirl,
You beat me to it and I am glad! MOST EXCELLENT!!!!!!

It's great! Now how do we get it into our smileys list?