What a Fish Knows by Jonathan Balcombe

What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins is a best-selling popular science book about the behaviour and intelligence of fish. It was written by Jonathan Balcombe, a British-born, US-based scientist and author who has written extensively on animal behaviour, ecology and conservation. His views on animal sentience run counter to conventional mainstream scientific thinking, as he stresses that animals do not simply aim to survive, but also take part in certain types of behaviour purely for fun or pleasure. The book was published in 2016 and can be purchased from Amazon by clicking here.

In What a Fish Knows Balcombe rejects the widespread belief that fish are unintelligent creatures that cannot feel pain, express emotions or interact with their environment in a meaningful way. Instead, Balcombe believes that fish are much more aware and sentient than we realise, and many fish behave in a human-like way showing communication, culture and a desire to seek out pleasure. It is Balcombe’s strong belief that humans simply do not understand this and therefore treat fish in a similar manner to the way they treat vegetables and plants, giving very little thought to the lives of fish. Balcombe has therefore written this book on behalf of fish and as a defence of fish and wants people to become aware of the complexity and sociability of relationships between fish, believing that this will “qualify [fish] for inclusion in our circle of moral concern” (p 6).

Bass
Balcombe argues that we are not aware of the levels of awareness and sentience that fish possess.

While What a Fish Knows is classified as a popular science book it also uses anecdotes and stories. Balcombe is clear that this will be done from the outset, stating that he will “sprinkle the science with stories of people’s encounter with fishes” (p 6) and acknowledges that “anecdotes carry little credibility with scientists” but they can “inspire deeper reflection on the human-animal relationship” (p 6). By doing this Balcombe is very much writing for a general (rather than scientific) audience, and the book is therefore very readable, with the scientific discussion couched in terms that are straightforward and accessible to people with little or no scientific background.

Many of the facts contained in this book are fascinating. He quotes work by Alison Mood which analysed statistics from the Fish and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations to attempt to calculate the total number of fish caught each year across the world. Balcombe writes:

“The number of fishes caught and killed each year by humans is between 1 and 2.7 trillion. To get a handle on the magnitude of a trillion fishes. If the average length of each caught fish is that of a dollar bill (six inches) and we lined them up end to end, they would stretch to the sun and back – a round trip of 186 million miles – with a couple of hundred billion fishes to spare” (p 7).

While this statistic is amazing enough a footnote informs the reader that Mood’s estimate does not include recreational fishing, illegal fishing, discarded fish, fish caught in ghost nets or fish caught to use as bait. While there is a wide range of facts and statistics used throughout this book they are woven into the text in such a way that the reader never gets the impression that the book relies on numbers and statistics to make its points. The same is true of the majority of anecdotes and stories which are used to illuminate and illustrate the wider scientific points he is making about fish and fish behaviour. Balcombe does not simply look at fish and the way they behave but also examines the wider issues relating to the ways in which we talk and think about fish.

When it comes to the language we use to describe both fish and the act of fishing Balcombe points to a number of issues. He dislikes talking about fish in terms of stocks, believing this reduces fish to the same status as crops which are grown only to feed humans. He also believes that terms such as overexploitation should be avoided as they legitimise unsustainable fishing and that discussing fish catches in terms of tons caught rather than numbers of individual fish caught helps mask the toll that humans take on wild fish populations. He also looks at the wider social and cultural context in which we view fish. Balcombe states that out of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish, it is fish that are “the most alien to our sensibilities” as they “lack detectable facial expressions” and “appear mute” (p 19). He goes on to say that this contributes to the cultural context of seeing fish as only “something to be caught, and “something to be eaten” (p 19).

By viewing fish in this way it becomes possible for humans to treat fish in a way that they do not treat any other type of creature. Balcombe makes references to angling, stating that “hooking and yanking them from the water has not just been seen as benign but as a symbol of all that’s good about life” making the point that catching any other animal in this way would be seen as totally unacceptable, but we do not just accept but actively encourage fish to be caught in this way. When it comes to eating fish Balcombe notes that “you may have met self-professed vegetarians who nonetheless eat fishes, as if there were no moral distinction between a cod and a cucumber” (p 19).

Rats and Frillfin Goby
Rats are capable of displaying cognitive mapping, and it has been proven that certain species of fish, such as the frillfin goby, pictured, also have this ability.

However, it is the descriptions and explanations of fish behaviour which are central to Balcombe’s argument and they make up the majority of this book. Indeed, much of what Balcombe points out is extremely convincing in making the reader believe that fish are much more intelligent than we believe. He explains how the frillfin goby – a small fish found in the waters of North and South America, the Mediterranean and northern Africa – shows amazing feats of memory. This species swims around the intertidal zone at high tide and memorizes depressions and holes which will become rockpools once the tide goes out. Armed with this knowledge the frillfin goby can then safely jump from rockpool to rockpool at low tide if it is threatened by predators without landing on rocks and becoming stranded out of the water. This is known as cognitive mapping, a skill that was thought to be unique to humans until the 1940s when it was proven that rats also exhibited cognitive mapping. Since then a number of other mammal and insect species have also shown this skill, and fish can now be added to this list.

Long-tailed macaque using tool
While primates such as this long-tailed macaque use tools, it has also been proven that some fish species also display this behaviour.

Similarly, using tools was once thought to be unique to humans until studies showed that mammals and birds used tools too. Balcome tells us that fish can now also be classed as a species that uses tools. He cites Giancomo Bernardi’s work on orange-dotted tuskfish which showed that this species would use rocks to break open clamshells and eat the contents. Balcombe also looks at research where animals that are considered intelligent such as orang-utans, chimpanzees and capuchin monkeys were given a red plate of food and a blue plate of the same food. The red plate was removed first, so in order to eat the maximum amount of food the animals had to learn to eat from this plate first. Balcombe explains that the primates had a poor record in this test, with many failing to realise that they had to eat from the red plate first, but when the same experiment was tried with six wrasse they all learned which plate to eat from first and how to maximise the amount of food they could eat. Furthermore, when the experiment was run again with younger wrasse that had not taken part in the experiment as many times as the older wrasse they performed significantly worse, proving that this was behaviour which was learned.

There are many chapters of this book which will make anglers think, especially the sections on fish pain, consciousness and awareness. Balcombe goes into great detail on this topic, assessing the views of academics and scientists from both sides of the ‘do fish feel pain’ argument. Of course, Balcombe himself very much does believe that fish can feel pain and puts forward a convincing argument in favour of this. He rejects the argument that by lacking a part of the brain called the neocortex fish cannot feel pain, pointing out that birds lack a neocortex but it is universally accepted that they can feel pain. He goes on to say that fish do possess a part of the brain called the pallium which can be used to learn, co-operate with other fish and remember, so it stands to reason that they can also use this part of their brain to feel pain. He also looks at studies that ask why fish continue to be caught on hooks if they feel pain. Balcombe states that fish may simply take the risk of eating food which may contain a hook because they are hungry, and quotes Australian scientist Culum Brown who says that in a competitive, food-scarce environment for fish, there is simply “too much uncertainty to let a meal go by” (p 76). These parts of the book will be particularly eye-opening for anglers who may simply have accepted (or assumed) that fish cannot feel pain, and may make anglers think twice about the ways they carry out their fishing.

Fishing
What a Fish Knows may make anglers think differently about the fish they catch.

Despite the depth and detail this book goes into there is not a huge amount of the book which directly addresses angling and recreational fishing (the index does not have an entry for ‘angling’ and lists only eleven pages (of the 270 total) under the entry for ‘recreational fishing’. This is of course understandable as this is a book about fish intelligence and not angling, but anyone reading this book from the perspective of an angler may be a little disappointed by how little their sport is considered throughout the book. That said the short section which directly addresses recreational angling towards the end of the book is very interesting. Balcombe quotes statistics stating that 33.1 million Americans ages sixteen or older go fishing every year and across the world and one in ten people engage regularly in recreational fishing. Balcombe believes that while the cruelty and environmental impact of commercial fishing is being increasingly recognised, recreational fishing “retains a benign and beloved place in our culture” (p 225), but fishing hooks can cause immense injury to fish, as can anglers handling fish, and decompression injuries can also be caused to fish by recreational fishing. It is to Balcombe’s immense credit that he is not – and has not made this book – anti-angling. He praises the use of barbless hooks and fully recognises that a large number of fish which are caught by anglers, handled properly and returned to the water will survive. For someone who clearly loves fish as much as Balcombe, it is refreshing that he has taken such as balanced and nuanced view of the sport of angling in What a Fish Knows.

However, Balcombe takes a much harsher stance on the world’s commercial fishing industry. He states that the belief that the oceans contained an inexhaustible supply of fish persisted well into the twentieth century, quoting a 1934 book by H. J. Shepstone called Animal Life of the World which stated that “though every year fish are taken from the sea in millions of tons, yet there are no signs that this store will ever become depleted” (p 212). The two main causes of the decline in the world’s fish stocks are then outlined: the rising population of the world and the improving technology of fishing vessels which has massively increased their efficiency at catching fish. The immense damage that commercial fishing methods cause to the marine environment is also assessed with Balcombe stating that bottom trawlers are responsible for:

“Indiscriminately scooping up everything in their path. A hundred years of structure on the bottom – corals, sponges, sea fans … is seriously damaged or destroyed by one pass of the trawl net” (p 213).

A similarly critical view is taken of fish farming and aquaculture, with Balcombe pointing out the damage that this activity does to the marine environment. He is particularly concerned about the number of small forage fish which are taken from the world’s seas and oceans to provide food for commercially valuable farmed fish, noting that as many as 1.2 billion individual menhaden forage fish may have been caught on an annual basis across the world prior to catch limits being enforced in 2013. The issue of bycatch is also addressed, with Balcombe stating that as much as 200 million pounds (in weight) of bycatch may be taken by humans from the sea every day. He also questions the accuracy of reports that global bycatch rates have reduced from 29 million tons per year in the 1980s to seven million tons in 2001, pointing out that commercial fishermen may now simply keep more species which in the past would have been thrown away as discards. This is because falling fish numbers have transformed previously worthless fish into commercially valuable species.

Commercial Fishing
Balcombe is highly critical of the modern commercial fishing industry.

For all of its good aspects What a Fish Knows is not a perfect book. The scientific names of species are used sporadically throughout the book. When Balcombe refers to ‘flounder’ and fails to give the scientific name the reader is left confused as to whether he is talking about the European flounder found in British waters (Platichthys flesus) or one of the many other species this name is applied to. Also, many of his points are backed up by anecdotes and simple observations of fish, rather than scientific studies or peer-reviewed data. To be fair to Balcombe he makes it absolutely clear at the start of the book that this is the approach he will be taking, and it pays to remember that this book is very much aimed at a general, and not a scientific, audience. There are also extensive references at the end of the book, many of which back up points that appear to be based on anecdotes and informal observations on first reading.

A further criticism that could be levelled at Balcombe is that he is guilty of anthropomorphising fish (attributing human characteristics to animals), a criticism which has been levelled at Balcombe and much of his work before. It may be the case that some of the fish behaviour which Balcombe interprets as intelligence, sentience or meaningful behaviour is in fact genetically hard-wired into fish, or is driven by instinct rather than intelligence and sentience. Ants, bees and other insects, for example, live in complex groups with hierarchies and roles for individual creatures but there are few people claiming that these are intelligent sentient beings. However, Balcombe, as an international expert and bestselling author who has a PhD in ethology would no doubt have compelling evidence of his own to counter such criticisms, and arguments such as this are moving beyond the realms of popular science for a general audience, and into scientific, academic debates which fall outside of the scope of this book.

In the epilogue, Balcombe discusses the speed at which “moral progress” (p 234) is happening when it comes to the way in which humans treat animals. He points out that one thousand animal protection laws have been enacted in the United States since 2004 and while animal cruelty was a felony crime in just four US states in 1985, it now has legal status in all fifty states (p 231 – 232). He believes that concerns over the welfare and treatment of fish have lagged behind that of other animals because of the appearance of fish and the fact that their faces are incapable of showing pain or emotion:

“Their unblinking eyes … amplify the illusion that they feel nothing. With a deficit of stimuli that normally trigger our sympathy, we are numbed to the fish’s plight” (p 232).

Despite this, there certainly are changes coming which are aimed at protecting fish from cruelty and harm. Balcombe points out that a 2008 law in Switzerland requires anglers to sit a course on catching fish more humanely, and some parts of Europe have banned keeping goldfish alone as they are naturally sociable animals. Germany has banned the use of minnows as live bait and banned fishing competitions where fish are killed to be weighed and then thrown back into the water. Clearly, changes in the way fish are treated (which could impact greatly on anglers) are inevitably on the way.

Overall, this is an excellent book. Informative, readable and fascinating it gives the reader a new insight into the way in which fish behave and makes a very convincing argument that fish are way more intelligent than we give them credit for. If Balcombe is correct (or even just partially correct) on the levels of intelligence and sentience which fish possess then anglers may have to ask themselves some very difficult questions about the way in which they treat fish, and if the trend of recent legislation to protect fish continues anglers may have to make significant adaptations in the way in which they carry out their sport. It is remarkable that Balcombe has written such as book without turning against angling, and indeed it may well be anglers, with their knowledge of fish and fish behaviour who particularly enjoy this book.

What a Fish Knows can be purchased from Amazon by clicking here.