Hi there! If you’re a kid
and you like the Little Mermaid, love to listen to a good SharkTale,
want to free Willy or Find Nemo…
oh wait…there he is…
or maybe you’re a fan of fish sticks, goin’ fishin’, or just think something fishy’s going on,
then this video is for you!
[Oh! I found him again]
Hi it's Emily from Bite Size Vegan and welcome to another vegan nugget. I’m so excited
to be making another video just for you. So far in my videos for kids we’ve talked about
why we don’t drink milk, eat meat or eggs, or honey, or wear wool,
how you can be a superhero for the planet, the people and the animals by being vegan
and even heard from real vegan kids! You can watch all of those videos later if you want
linked there and in the video description below.
Now just like in my other videos I promise that I’m not going to show you anything
scary, that I’ll tell you the truth no matter what and that I won’t talk down to you,
cause you’re super smart!
Now in one of my other videos for kids we talked all about why we don’t eat meat.
When most people think about meat, they think about animals like cows, pigs, chickens and
other birds, maybe even goats and sheep.
Strangely enough fish are often left out altogether. So you may hear someone say they’re vegetarian
(meaning they don’t eat meat), but they do eat fish, which is pretty silly when you
think about it. I mean, does that mean that fish are plants? Have you ever seen a fish tree,
because I certainly haven’t! If you…do find a fish tree…definitely let me know.
Well vegans certainly don’t eat fish. If you don’t know already, being vegan means
you don’t eat animals or anything that comes out of them like milk, eggs, cheese, or honey
or wear anything from their bodies, like wool or leather or silk.
And the truth is fish are animals! Just like dogs, cats, cows, pigs, chickens, and us!
But being basically called plants isn’t the only way fish get a bad rap.
Many people think that fish can’t feel pain. There are even teams of scientists who argue
back and forth all the time with their big words and charts and graphs about
whether or not fish feel pain.
If you’re super into science, I have a whole video about the battle of brainiacs,
that you can watch here. But to make it simple, studies show that fish do, in fact feel pain.
And like I’ve talked about in my other videos for kids, if someone can feel pain,
then it’s not right to hurt them, even if they do live underwater and don’t look or act anything like we do.
It’s hard to know what a fish is thinking or feeling because they do look so different from us!
When dogs are hurt or sad, they whine. When cows are really scared, their eyes get all big.
When cats are happy, they purr. And even though we don’t speak dog or cow or cat -
or at least I don’t…if you do…that’s pretty awesome!—
we still can still understand what they’re feeling.
But how do you know if a fish is happy or sad? If they’re excited? Scared?
How can you tell if they hurt? Sadly, what scientists usually do to find out of someone can feel pain,
is they hurt them. And we humans have a habit of not believing something until we prove it.
So even though fish have always felt pain, scientists keep hurting them.
It’s kinda like if the Earth was invaded by aliens from the planet Fishtonia, who looked
totally different than us and couldn’t understand what we were saying. And just because we look
different from them, the aliens decided that we probably weren’t very smart and definitely
don’t feel pain or emotions. How scary would that be trying to tell them in the best way
we know how that we do hurt, but being ignored because we’re so different?
That may seem like a silly concept, but sometimes the best way to know if what we do to animals
is right is to imagine ourselves in their place.
Of course what’s worse for fish than scientists hurting them to see if they feel pain is the
whole rest of the world hurting them for dinner! A ton of people all around the world eat a
ton of fish, and I mean actually tons and tons of fish. And because people think that fish can’t
feel pain, there are no laws about how they should be treated.
It’s kinda like finding your favorite food on your kitchen table but when to take a bite,
suddenly your mouth hurts really bad! And before you know it you’re pulled out the
front door and underwater.
That would be pretty scary, right? Well that’s what it’s like for fish when they bite onto hooks.
And just like we can’t breathe underwater, fish can’t breathe when they’re out of
the water, so after they’re caught, whether by a hook or by a net, they die
very slowly and very painfully.
The worst part is fish are even skinned and cut up alive. I can’t even imagine how terrifying
and painful that would be!
Fish may not look like you or me. They may not scream or cry like we do. But even you
and I don’t scream the same way or cry the same way or about the same things.
Different people laugh at different jokes. Some people will hide when they’re scared while others
will act tough and pretend they’re okay. In some countries shaking your head means
yes and nodding means no.
And I don’t have to tell you that different people look..well…different! But when it
comes down to it, no matter what language we speak or how we shake our heads, we all feel.
We can feel joy and happiness, we can feel fear and sadness and we can hurt.
And so can fish. And cows, and pigs, and chickens, goats, sheep, dogs, cats, monkeys, camels,
parrots, rabbits, iguanas, elephants, zebras, whales, rhinoceroses, platypuses, dragons,
unicorns, jabberwocks and bandersnatches…
oh I got... a little carried away there…
But here’s the important thing. Fish can feel pain. And hurting anyone who can be hurt
is a pretty awful thing to do. They may not talk like Nemo and Dori, but they do have
mothers and fathers and sister and brothers. They even form friendships, watch each others’
backs, and are a whole lot smarter than we’ve always thought!
But every year we humans kill about 2.8 trillion fish for food. That’s a pretty huge number!
Just think about this. This is an inch. If you walked for 2.8 trillion inches, you could
go to the moon and back almost 94 times, or around the world almost 2,800 times!
It’s hard to even imagine a number that big! And it’s not only hurting the fish,
but also our planet. Pretty soon there won’t be any fish left in the sea!
But here’s the good news. You can be a friend to the fish and choose not to eat them!
And you don’t even have to give up your favorite fish dishes! There are vegan fish sticks and
vegan prawns and other options to chose from.
No painful hooks, no being pulled from their home, no slow and scary deaths, and no being
cut up alive. You can save them from all of that. And even though they may not be able
to thank you in a way you can understand, your choice will keep little fish families
together. And that’s pretty amazing!
I hope this was helpful. Let me know what you thought of the video in the comments and
if you have other things you’d like me to cover, feel free to tell me!
If you liked this video, do give it a thumbs up and share it around to help other kids
learn the truth. If you’re new here, do hit that big red subscribe button down there
for more awesome vegan content every Monday, Wednesday, and some Fridays and to not miss
out the on the rest of my videos for kids. If you’re an adult and you want to help
support Bite Size Vegan, check out either of the support links in the description
below or click the Nugget Army icon or the link in the sidebar. Now go live vegan,
ditch the fish sticks, and I’ll see you soon!
What do you call a fish with two eyes?
A f-II-sh
What you you call a fish with no eyes?
A f-sh.
I’m gonna stop now…
It’s probably best.