OPINION: It's one thing to buy 'food' for animals that need such a diet,
but to torture (and yes, I would consider fish dying from suffocation and
mauling torture) an animal just because it's cheap and 'expendable' is as
humane and letting a pack of dobermans loose in a room full of ferrets.
 
I have to agree it does seem a rather barbaric practice.  While I have never
cried over the death of a fish, still to use them solely for amusement
purposes... well, it just doesn't sit right with me.  I no fish are not
exceptionally high on the evolutionary ladder, and while I could never hunt
a warm-blooded animal for anything but to stave off starvation, I do fish
without much guilt.  I also limit what I catch to what I can eat and the
too-small are released.  Since your ferrets aren't even eating the fish,
why not try "bobbing for raisins" in place of a mass goldfish slaughter?
 
Just to get this off my chest: This was posted quite a while ago, but it's
stuck in my mind since I read it.  It was about someone who had both rats
and ferrets, and they talked about how the best way to get the rats,
especially the young ones, back to their cage was to let the ferrets out.
That occasionally one got caught by the ferrets when it was too slow getting
to it's cage and she felt bad hearing it's squeaks (loosely paraphrased) but
she wasn't about to stick her hand under the sofa with two "ferrets in full
predatory mode, not to mention a frightened rat"... and that part is, I
believe verbatim.  The image of that stayed in my mind and truly turns my
stomach.  I have has more pet rats than ferrets.  I don't keep rats anymore
because of severe allergies to them.  I love my ferret very much, but I have
to say that if you chose to keep different species of animals that don't
traditionally mix well (they normally have a predator/prey relationship),
then you have an absolute responsibility to prevent one from killing the
other by ensuring they do not mix.  Okay, I can see that accidents happen to
the best of us, but this sure didn't seem like an isolated incident to me;
it seemingly was related in a casual manner, and the fact that this person
didn't even *try* to break it up really got to me.  Sorry - this was just
something I really needed to get out as I found it very upsetting.  I tried
to ignore it, but it still haunts me.
 
(the other) Kat
[Posted in FML issue 2325]