thewizardhunter wrote:
Tom Randy Wrote:
On Wed, 19 Jan 2005 07:02:04 -0600, Margolis wrote:
-
what method do you use to euthanize them?-


Here's how *I* did it and he (A cory) didn't "seem" to be in much
if
any pain based on his movements or lack there of.
[the ice method]
TheWizardHunter



Tom

Many people use this way but do not realise that is is a slow and
torturing death for the fish. The quickest and most humane way to
euthanize a
fish is to remove it as quickly as posible from the tank, place it
onto a
board of some sort and sever the spinal column just behide the head
with a
very sharp knife by pressing down hard and quickly. Death is
instantaniuos
and the fish doesn't suffer. As drastic as this might sound it is the

quickest and most humane.


--
thewizardhunter

I'll mostly second what Thewizardhunter says about decapitation. I
have often used a variant of it, instead of the ice method.

The reason is that death from ice is NOT instantaneous, and we are
simply not sure if the fish is in distress/pain; a fish *showing* no
signs of pain or distress is not necessarily comfortable. Period. For
me, this rules the method out a priori.

The way I kill my fish (which have been for the most part small fish)
is to smash the fish's head to smithereens with a hammer, in one blow.
This is less risky to me than cutting and is harder to botch to boot.
I can be a lot more imprecise with the hammer than with the knife,
while still killing instantaneously. I don't even need to take the
fish out of the net.


--Trapper