Torturing Fish in Miami

Op-Ed by John Guy

Where are the animal rights activists when you need them? Where is ASPCA, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals? Get them down to Miami. Give them balaclavas and baseball bats. Get them to beat down the doors of the University of Miami and haul these criminals out. Hand them over for prosecution. Expose them for what they are. At the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science some people who call themselves scientists are torturing fish.

Not just torturing them, boasting about it. In a press release Edward Mager, UM Rosenstiel School postdoctoral associate, says he and his team have deliberately exposed larvae and juvenile mahi-mahi to Deepwater Horizon crude oil to simulate environmental conditions during the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. And this proved that fish exposed to oil don’t swim so well afterwards.

In other words, it is not enough that an oil spill hurt some fish. These people deliberately collected some oil and used it to hurt some more fish. For no benefit to the environment or to fish, simply to milk money from the oil spill to puff up their so-called scientific careers and keep their labs going in the style they would like to become accustomed to.

It’s wrong to spill oil and it’s wrong to hurt fish. It was wrong for BP, Transocean and Haliburton to hurt fish, and it’s just as wrong for The University of Miami to hurt fish. The big difference is that the first three were careless, they didn’t plan to hurt anyone or anything. The University of Miami is different. Its people are setting out deliberately to hurt fish. It has to be stopped.

When there is an oil spill it’s right to hurt the companies involved. Hurt them badly, make them pay. Use the money to clean up, use the money to compensate people who lose out because of the spill. Use anything left to research ways to make oil and gas exploitation safer in the future. Use money to research alternative cleaner energy sources if you like. But don’t give it to people who get up in the morning thinking about ways to hurt marine life.

John Guy served on merchant ships and warships for sixteen years before becoming a ship inspector and then a journalist. He advises companies and organizations working in the global shipping industry on media and crisis management. His latest novel is The Golden Tide.