Heartwarming stories about animals: fish are very often the last animals we consider as having feelings, suffering

p ain, or interacting with us in any significant way. But here is a story that ma y change that perception : from the PETA book: "I knew a banded severum long ago who lived in an aquarium in a country house';D uring the mornings, when the house was quiet, the fish spent his time at the end of the tank near the window, catching the morning sunlight... But at around 4:30 pm, he swam to the other side of the tank and floated there, staring at the hallway door. At that time of day, his "man" came home from work. Before the key turned in th e lock, the fish began "pacing".... Every few laps he paused and...stared hopefully at the door. Perhaps he sensed that the man loved him, as wholly inadequate as a man's love f or a fish must be. ... The man rushed straight into the living room... the fish jumped , lifting ab out a fifth of his body clean out of the water. The man would gently scratch the fish's back, the fish first offering one side o f his body to be petted, then the other, making little waves with the swishing o f his fins." THE EYES OF AN EEL One evening, driving into Philadelphia, I stopped my car... two men were fishing . ... i saw one of the men wrestling with what looked to be a long fish. ... Wh en i got there, i realized he had caught an eel. A five pronged metal gaff.. was embedded in the eel's throat. As the animal wrig gled, the man...only succeeded in making a bloody mess. I took the towel the man had been using to clean his fish knife and wrapped it a round the eel... the eel's face was now level with mine. Suddenly the man lost his patience and yanked hard on the gaff... the eel and i made eye contact at that very moment There was no mistaking the look on the eel's face: shock, horror, sheer fright, and terrible pain. He could have been a dog. a child the man fishing. or me

it has been years, but i still cant shake the look in that poor animal's eyes." the author goes on to write that the man who did this seemed decent, nice, and r espectable, as they went on to talk. she tried to let him see what she had seen , to explain, but he did not see anything wrong with what had taken place. She realized that if the animal had been a dog, a horse, or another animal he c ould relate to he would have been just as upset as she was "Fish are so low on the totem pole.. Yet fish are communicative and sensitive an

imals..that experience fear and pain. Their mouths are exquisitely sensitive to stimuli..so any pain they feel there m ust be acute. When people catch them and then release them, thinking this is more humane, Elle n DeGeneres made a really good point with a joke: she said, that's like running down pedestrians in your car and then when they g et up and limp away , you say, "Off you go! that's fine, i just wanted to see i f i could hit you" one thing you can do is apply for hunting licenses and permits. Follow activist Janet Palomis's lead by signing up nursing home residents for free senior citi zen hunting licenses. Each license obtained by a non hunter saves lives that a real hunter might have taken. and it is proven in this book with research info that hunting DOES NOT reduce th e animal population. the intentions of the hunters are not to help the animals i n this or any other way.