Decoration and Torture instrument
You find them more and more in restaurants and shops, in different shapes and sizes: a Fish bowl with one or more goldfish in it. You will also find half-fishtanks that are hung up on the wall by their flat side. In a restaurant at an exhibition in IJmuiden they placed a simple glassbowl with two goldfish on every table. Some visitors threw their cigarette ends and leftover beer in it. Every morning the dead fish were replaced by new ones. Goldfish as decoration is apparently in. The animals are rarely seen or treated as living creatures even though it is known that goldfish are very sensitive animals. If treated well goldfish can reach the age of 20 to 40 years. In their narrow goldfish bowls they barely last a few days or weeks. More than a thousand years ago the Chinese started to breed goldfish from silver carp. Initially they were kept in ponds but later on they were also kept in big pottery bowls. Through the centuries goldfish have been bred in numerous different ways, all over the world and became more and more popular. Every year one hundred million Goldfish are bred throughout the world, between 5 and 10 million are sold in Holland alone. We can conclude that in general these animals are fated to live a short life.
Why the goldfishbowl is bad
Many of the goldfish will end up in a goldfishbowl. People unfortunately don't realize that this is an instrument of torture for the fish. What makes it so bad? First of all the goldfish bowl is of course much too small. The bowl usually contains only a few litres of water. If they are lucky and get a big fishbowl it contains 10 to 15 litres of water. That's far too little for a goldfish who needs at least 250 litres. The small amount of water in a fishbowl not only gets dirty very quickly, but can also become too warm very fast. Due to the shape of the bowl the contact area of the water with the air is so small that there is a constant lack of oxygen. The living environment of the fishbowl offers the goldfish no interests or variety. They can't take their bearings, conceal themselves, keep their distance from other fish and search for food. The bowl also barely offers any room to move. Fish, Goldfish as well, are built to swim considerable distances. In a bowl they can just swim in circles. According to the opinion of the experts the goldfishbowl is absolutely unsuitable for keeping fish. The biologist and head of the Wilhelma Aquarium in Stuttgart, Dr Dieter Jauch, writes in his book about the care of goldfish, Goldfish in aquariums and gardenponds; 'who ever puts goldfish in this sort of prison is committing animal abuse'.
Still want that all great biorb you were thinkin of getting?
You find them more and more in restaurants and shops, in different shapes and sizes: a Fish bowl with one or more goldfish in it. You will also find half-fishtanks that are hung up on the wall by their flat side. In a restaurant at an exhibition in IJmuiden they placed a simple glassbowl with two goldfish on every table. Some visitors threw their cigarette ends and leftover beer in it. Every morning the dead fish were replaced by new ones. Goldfish as decoration is apparently in. The animals are rarely seen or treated as living creatures even though it is known that goldfish are very sensitive animals. If treated well goldfish can reach the age of 20 to 40 years. In their narrow goldfish bowls they barely last a few days or weeks. More than a thousand years ago the Chinese started to breed goldfish from silver carp. Initially they were kept in ponds but later on they were also kept in big pottery bowls. Through the centuries goldfish have been bred in numerous different ways, all over the world and became more and more popular. Every year one hundred million Goldfish are bred throughout the world, between 5 and 10 million are sold in Holland alone. We can conclude that in general these animals are fated to live a short life.
Why the goldfishbowl is bad
Many of the goldfish will end up in a goldfishbowl. People unfortunately don't realize that this is an instrument of torture for the fish. What makes it so bad? First of all the goldfish bowl is of course much too small. The bowl usually contains only a few litres of water. If they are lucky and get a big fishbowl it contains 10 to 15 litres of water. That's far too little for a goldfish who needs at least 250 litres. The small amount of water in a fishbowl not only gets dirty very quickly, but can also become too warm very fast. Due to the shape of the bowl the contact area of the water with the air is so small that there is a constant lack of oxygen. The living environment of the fishbowl offers the goldfish no interests or variety. They can't take their bearings, conceal themselves, keep their distance from other fish and search for food. The bowl also barely offers any room to move. Fish, Goldfish as well, are built to swim considerable distances. In a bowl they can just swim in circles. According to the opinion of the experts the goldfishbowl is absolutely unsuitable for keeping fish. The biologist and head of the Wilhelma Aquarium in Stuttgart, Dr Dieter Jauch, writes in his book about the care of goldfish, Goldfish in aquariums and gardenponds; 'who ever puts goldfish in this sort of prison is committing animal abuse'.
Still want that all great biorb you were thinkin of getting?