And stick some green chile on it while you're at it
Every time someone brings up Nemo and clownfish and how much we sell I can't help but be reminded of that used car salesman in The Grapes Of Wrath. I keep saying "I could sell a million clownfish. All I need is clownfish, I can sell 'em as quick as you can bring 'em in." And I keep getting this mental image of me being in a dusty petstore by route 66 selling clownfish to desperate passers-by.
I never took the time to muse on it until lately, but I have to (or think I have to) destroy quite a few animals on any given day. It's not something I'm particularly happy with. Just the other day we got our regular feeder fish shipment in, and one of our bags of small comet goldfish with approximately 1,000 fish in it came in about two-thirds dead. I asked the boss to get the finquel out of the safe (Ever since some moron threatened to put it in someone's drink, they stick it in there), put the goldfish into a bucket, took it to the back, and put the finquel in.
Finquel, all things considered, is be a better way to go than many other people give their fish. It's an anesthetic, and if too much is given, the fish will just gently go to sleep.
The thing that gets me is how casually I do this nowadays. My rationale being that if the fish are terribly stressed and infection has set in, they're a risk to the system of connected tanks that they might go into. So, by putting 200 someodd fish to sleep, 1000+ will be saved. Supposedly. It's one of those things that I'll never be sure about. They could possibly be all right, I could fish the live ones out, and they'll be fine. But I don't know.
I know I'm expected to do everything I can to make sure the animals are well taken care of. I like to think I do it well, we have yet to have some major meltdown that I was an instrument of. It's usually the vendor's fault, or FedEx's fault, or someone else's fault. Poor shipping conditions will take its toll on fish, they'll stress badly, and illness will set in. The vendor wasn't paying attention, underfed the fish too long, packed them improperly, etc, and they'll come in and I can't put them in our tanks. I can't let them in the tanks with hundreds and hundreds of other fish, if they might infect them in any way.
A customer buys a bunch of fish without thinking, and I'll tell them the mixture, or the amount, or something or other would be detrimental to the fish, that it might kill them, and they reply to me that "It's ok, they're just 99 cent fish." It bothers me so much that an animals life is so worthless to them, but I'm killing hundreds of them. I can tell myself that I'm doing it for the greater good, and I have more to think about than one bag of fish. I have to convince myself a little bit that what I do I do because I have to, and what they do, they do out of ignorance and a willing lack of empathy. I feel bad when I euthanize fish. I don't really want to do it.
I keep coming back to the question of whether or not I have to do it, and whether or not I'm cold hearted. I do think I have to do it, but I don't like it.
I never took the time to muse on it until lately, but I have to (or think I have to) destroy quite a few animals on any given day. It's not something I'm particularly happy with. Just the other day we got our regular feeder fish shipment in, and one of our bags of small comet goldfish with approximately 1,000 fish in it came in about two-thirds dead. I asked the boss to get the finquel out of the safe (Ever since some moron threatened to put it in someone's drink, they stick it in there), put the goldfish into a bucket, took it to the back, and put the finquel in.
Finquel, all things considered, is be a better way to go than many other people give their fish. It's an anesthetic, and if too much is given, the fish will just gently go to sleep.
The thing that gets me is how casually I do this nowadays. My rationale being that if the fish are terribly stressed and infection has set in, they're a risk to the system of connected tanks that they might go into. So, by putting 200 someodd fish to sleep, 1000+ will be saved. Supposedly. It's one of those things that I'll never be sure about. They could possibly be all right, I could fish the live ones out, and they'll be fine. But I don't know.
I know I'm expected to do everything I can to make sure the animals are well taken care of. I like to think I do it well, we have yet to have some major meltdown that I was an instrument of. It's usually the vendor's fault, or FedEx's fault, or someone else's fault. Poor shipping conditions will take its toll on fish, they'll stress badly, and illness will set in. The vendor wasn't paying attention, underfed the fish too long, packed them improperly, etc, and they'll come in and I can't put them in our tanks. I can't let them in the tanks with hundreds and hundreds of other fish, if they might infect them in any way.
A customer buys a bunch of fish without thinking, and I'll tell them the mixture, or the amount, or something or other would be detrimental to the fish, that it might kill them, and they reply to me that "It's ok, they're just 99 cent fish." It bothers me so much that an animals life is so worthless to them, but I'm killing hundreds of them. I can tell myself that I'm doing it for the greater good, and I have more to think about than one bag of fish. I have to convince myself a little bit that what I do I do because I have to, and what they do, they do out of ignorance and a willing lack of empathy. I feel bad when I euthanize fish. I don't really want to do it.
I keep coming back to the question of whether or not I have to do it, and whether or not I'm cold hearted. I do think I have to do it, but I don't like it.