January 16, 2009

Would you eat a sea kitten?

Posted: 12:46 PM ET

[cnn-photo-caption image=http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/01/16/art.sea.peta.jpg

caption="You can make a cute little sea kitten character like this at the new section of PETA's Web site, peta.org/sea_kittens."]

You don't have to look at the page views of Web sites like cutelittlekittens.com to know that a lot of people adore kittens. Conversely, not as many people adore fish - in fact, cutefish.com has only the number 0.

The animal rights campaign group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, PETA, has decided to play off of our awe of kittens by re-branding fish as "sea kittens" in order to discourage people from killing and eating them.

"Would people think twice about ordering fish sticks if they were called Sea Kitten sticks? Help us save fish by changing their names!" PETA writes on its Web site.

The new sea kitten Web portal is complete with a petition, cute little stories about sea kittens - some attend Clamster University! - and a tool to design your own sea kitten. The petition has more than 4,544 signatures as of this writing.

"Given the drastic situation for this country's sea kittens - who are often the victims of many major threats to their welfare and ways of life - it's high time that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) stop allowing our little sea kitten friends to be tortured and killed. Who'd want to hurt a sea kitten anyway?!" the Web site says.

How far will this "sea kitten" label extend? Will people find themselves ordering the "Chilean striped sea kitten with mashed potatoes"?

Certainly there are already vegetarians out there who do not consume fish for ethical reasons. Princeton professor Peter Singer, famous for his arguments about why not to consume meat, similarly advocates avoiding eating fish in Animal Liberation, although notes that things do get fuzzier when considering simpler forms of marine life, such as mollusks and oysters.

Of course, besides being a favorite delicacy at restaurants and family dinners, fish also form part of specific eating rituals in certain cultures. For example, in China, the fish is served whole - with the head and tail intact - to represent prosperity, especially on Chinese New Year’s Eve. In Slovakia, it is traditional to let a carp swim in the family bathtub in the days before the feisty critter becomes part of the Christmas meal. And, it is a Jewish custom eat fish on the Sabbath, one reason being that the numerical value of the Hebrew word for fish, "dag," adds up to 7, and the Sabbath is the 7th day.

So what do you think: Is it ethically acceptable to eat fish? Will the sea kitten campaign be effective? Would your goldfish mind being called a sea kitten?

Posted by: Elizabeth Landau -- CNN.com Writer/Producer
Filed under: Animals • Oceans

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sanjosemike

January 25th, 2009 9:36 am ET

OF COURSE HUMANS CAN DIGEST RAW MEAT

The posters who have said humans can't digest raw meat are simply wrong. They can. If they wish to eat raw meat in larger amounts, they need to do it over a period of time, in order to allow the intestinal flora to "adapt" to it. We have lots of e-coli. They will take care of it "as necessary."

If you try to push raw meat too hard and fast, I guarantee you will not tolerate it well (at the beginning.).

DJ is correct that humans are omnivores. It's a matter of species survival. That's one of the reasons why we've done so well, as a species.

A balanced ecology is the key. Humans, because they have the ability to control their ecology, have loused it up. Animal rights activists, although they mean well, have a hard time recognizing the horror of protein transfer between species.

And it is horrible. Animals suffer horribly and die. PETA want to change that, at least among humans. It's fully understandable. But it is not reality.

Nature is ugly in the extreme. The lady who runs PETA is an atheist, like I am. She of all people should understand. There is no god or gods. Nature is "what it is."

PETA is naive to the point of absurdity. All they do is shoot themselves in their own feet.

sanjosemike

Would you eat a sea kitten?

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