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74 Fish Feel Pain i. allergy: revenge of the lobster I’m trying to remember lobster, its sweet meat, since I can no longer consume it. It turned on me near the shores of Cape Cod, crept under my skin— phantom claws and spanking tail, pushing up hives of spume and spindrift, the itchy red stigmata— for all those times I slipped them into the boiling pot, told they really couldn’t feel it. ii. trout trauma Today I read that scientists discovered fish feel pain. Injecting the lips of trout with bee venom, they watched them rock, rub their lips against gravel for relief. Years ago, fishing on a cool, clear lake in the Colorado mountains, I hooked an 8-pounder; 75 landed it on the bank, watched as it flopped and lurched toward water— I grabbed a branch to club it, keep it from getting away from the dinner table, thought without a nervous system it wouldn’t feel anything. iii. human trauma I’ve been to the E.R. a few times with ichthyophagous reactions. A fillet of haddock turned my body snapper red, left me gasping like a fugu victim at a sushi bar, and wondering if fish do feel the pain of a baited hook, walleye, bluegill, and pike flailing on Michigan Great Outdoors, hanging from the hook of a finger above the blue-gray pulse of Lake Erie. And me, gasping, the release of histamine— the smother of thin, thin air. ...

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