• Question: do you eat the fish you experiment on or do you throw them away?

    Asked by jonny12345 to Clare, Dave, Glo, Ozge, Sean on 16 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Gloeta Massie

      Gloeta Massie answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      Neither. When I was working with fish – after I had dissected out their intestines (after they were dead, of course!) I would autoclave them – which means to basically cook them in superhigh heat under superhigh pressure. After that – the now-super cooked tissues were burned. (They were highly infectious.) Now, well – I basically do the same thing. When at all possible though, I get the venom glands from fishermen who DO eat the octopus and squid – that way – the animal doesn’t have to be incinerated, and someone gets a yummy meal.

    • Photo: Dave Sproson

      Dave Sproson answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I don’t work with fish – but I doubt I’d want to eat them if I had been using them in experiments!

    • Photo: Ozge Ozkaya

      Ozge Ozkaya answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I work on krill not fish and no I don’t eat them. Our samples are super precious because we got them from Antarctica. We only had one chance to go to Antarctica at the beggining of the project and we use every single part of the krill. People do eat krill though, and they also make krill oil with it, like fish oil, as food suplement.
      I used to work on zebrafish, I wouldnt eat that either though as it’s a fresh water fish and generally fresh water fish are not very yummy. If I was locked in the lab for days and I couldnt get out I would eat the zebrafish I think.
      A guy in our department was working on crabs but he only needed the eyes and he was giving away the rest of the crab to colleagues, I ate a lot of crabs then. 🙂

    • Photo: Clare Woulds

      Clare Woulds answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I don’t work on fish, I work on worms, so you wouldn’t want to eat them anyway! Also, I have to analyse my samples at the end of my experiments, so there usually isn’t much left over. Worms for tea anyone?

    • Photo: Sean Clement

      Sean Clement answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I’ve known friends of mine to take home fish after research cruises. I think it’s a shame that more people don’t. Bycatch discard (where fishermen throw the fish they don’t want t back into the sea, often when they’re dead or dying) is a huge issue at the moment and is responsible for a decline in the populations of many species of fish. It’s such a waste and I think that, where possible, Scientists should do their best to ensure whatever they catch that they don’t need is returned to the sea as quickly and humanely as possible…

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