The following was first published on the Huffington Post:

Catholic bishops in the U.K. want to reinstate year-round meatless Fridays, which sounds great to us, except for one thing: They still seem to be hung up on the idea that fish are swimming vegetables.

Clicksy/cc by 2.0

What am I, chopped rutabaga?

Like all other animals killed for food, fish are sentient beings who value their lives. Research on fish intelligence abounds, revealing that fish use tools, tell time, sing, and have impressive long-term memories and complex social structures. Fish also create cognitive maps that allow them to navigate through vast expanses of water.

More importantly, like other animals, fish feel pain. Renowned scientist Victoria Braithwaite noted, "[T]here is as much evidence that fish feel pain and suffer as there is for birds and mammals." Fish used for food are hooked, suffocated, crushed, impaled, cut open, and gutted, all while still conscious, and they feel every agonizing second.
 

Not eating animals is a smart, compassionate decision, regardless of whether those animals are furred, feathered, or finned.What better time than World Week for the Abolition of Meat to let fish off the hook?

Remember the scene from Finding Nemo when the shark is reminding himself, "Fish are friends, not food?" He was right, of course, but sometimes people forget that, which is why a PETA mermaid took to the streets of Providence, Rhode Island to remind people that giving up meat for Lent includes fish too.
 

 
Fish are intelligent, sensitive animals who have impressive long-term memories. They enjoy gentle contact and brush up against each other like cats who rub against people's legs. And they don't have to be covered in fur to experience pain and fear while being killed.

If you wouldn't hook a kitten, don't hook a fish. Instead, take a peek at our cuddly sea kittens, design a fin ball of your own, and let fish stay under the sea.

Written by Michelle Sherrow

You won't catch a male ninespine stickleback asking that question, according to a recent study conducted at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Researchers Dr. Mike Webster and Professor Kevin Laland found that while ninespine sticklebacks are known to be capable of sophisticated social learning behavior, including communicating with each other about where to find the best food sources, males who are preparing to breed will stop "asking for directions," so to speak, and go out foraging for food on their own.

Jeff Kubina / CC by 2.0

The researchers believe that the fish do this because they need to find new food reserves that they can easily return to once their babies hatch, after which they will need to spend more time guarding and caring for them.

Says Dr. Webster, "Over the last few years, we have learned the surprising extent of the cognitive capabilities of many species of fish, and recent research has shown that rather than blindly copying others, fish are selective in when they copy and even who they learn from."

Sound like someone you know? No word on whether male ninespine sticklebacks also monopolize the remote and leave the toilet seat up.

Written by Alisa Mullins

The University of Alabama at Birmingham is the first of several colleges whose president has been asked by PETA to eliminate the school's fishing team. We know what you're asking yourself: "There are actually enough boys on several college campuses trying to compensate for their below-the-belt shortcomings to start fishing teams?" Of course, they must be compensating for something. After all, why else would they participate in a "sport" in which you handle a long rod and take out your aggressions on animals who are about a hundredth of your size—in this case by tearing through their mouths with hooks and watching them thrash about and slowly suffocate, just as you would if you were in their element?

Wondering how you measure up when it comes to rod vs. rod? Take this 10-second online poll to find out.

Written by Joe Taksel

Over the weekend, all the contestants in Milwaukee's Brew City Salmon Tournament got a little something to take home with them—even if they didn't manage to hook, suffocate, and kill any sea kittens.

PETA took to the skies over Lake Michigan with an airplane banner urging tournament participants to look at angling from a different angle by imagining if the shoe were on the other foot (fin?).

© John M. Mesich/MesichPhotography.com

So maybe the message isn't about shoes and feet so much as about turning the other cheek? Of course, if it had been up to me, I'd have gone with a banner asking the question on everyone's mind: Do anglers have small rods?

To show the world that you have a big heart (among other organs) when it comes to fish, start here.

Written by Jeff Mackey

Just in time for the Discovery Channel's Shark Week comes news reminding us that sharks are not just predators but also often prey—for humans.

Brazil's Environmental Justice Institute has claimed that one seafood exporter has illegally killed nearly 300,000 sharks—just let that number sink in for a moment—in response to growing demand from an increasingly affluent middle class in China, where shark fin soup is considered a delicacy.

While sharks aren't particularly cuddly, that's beside the point. All animals feel fear and pain, and what kind of justification can there be for the hideous cruelty involved in pulling sharks from the water, cutting off their fins, and then throwing them back into the sea to spin to the bottom while they slowly bleed to death? While sharks' predatory nature may give nightmares to anyone who's watched Jaws, humans beat them by far when it comes to the number of victims each species kills for food. And killing sharks in huge numbers threatens the balance of the marine ecosystem.

To its credit, Discovery devotes resources during Shark Week to raising awareness of finning. In light of Hawaii's recent ban on the possession, sale, trade, and distribution of shark fins, perhaps the tide is turning (geddit?) in their favor, but sharks and other threatened aquatic animals still need help.

Written by Jeff Mackey

A report issued this week by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Tom Coburn, R-Okla., blasts 100 "questionable," "mismanaged," and "poorly planned" stimulus-funded projects, including an especially cruel and wasteful experiment that the report aptly calls "Monkeys Getting High for Science." (No, it isn't another Onion story, unfortunately.) The study in question is being conducted at the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, which nabbed $71,623 in stimulus funds (i.e., tax dollars) to feed cocaine to monkeys.

"I think all of [the projects] are waste," McCain told ABC News. "[S]ome are more egregious than others but all of them are terrible."

Hooking monkeys on coke definitely falls into the "more egregious" category. Unfortunately, the idiotic study is just a drop in the proverbial crack pipe. Other mind-bogglingly absurd addiction studies on animals include the following:

• National Institutes of Health–funded experimenter Michael Weed trained monkeys in a basic motor task, infected them with simian immunodeficiency virus, and then checked how they performed the task—while on cocaine. So now we know … what? That you shouldn't hire monkeys with STDs who are high on drugs to mow your lawn?
• Yale professor Marina Picciotto wasted taxpayer money to feed monkeys Kool-Aid laced with huge amounts of liquid nicotine (the equivalent of 17 packs of cigarettes a day in one case!) and addicted rats and mice to cocaine, morphine, and alcohol before decapitating them. Anyone with a head on their shoulders would realize that this is cruel—and pointless.
• Oregon National Primate Research Center experimenter Eliot Spindel impregnates monkeys and injects them with dangerous levels of nicotine. He then kills and dissects their preterm babies after cutting them out of their mothers. Yeah, pregnant women shouldn't smoke—we know that already.
• Another frequent rider of the NIH gravy train, Stephen Suomi, separates baby monkeys from their mothers and gives them access to alcohol to see how stress and maternal deprivation affect their desire to drown their sorrows. Just reading about this makes me want to head to the nearest bar.

Please help prevent more money from being flushed down the laboratory drain by asking the National Institutes of Health to stop funding addiction experiments on animals.

Written by Alisa Mullins

American Idol season seven runner-up Kristy Lee Cook is doing anything she can to get her "15 Minutes of Shame." In her new television show on Versus (formerly the Outdoor Life Network), Kristy is traveling around the country shooting animals. It sounds like she must have had those tired old defenses of hunting hammered into her as a kid, because she isn't embarrassed to float the incredibly old saw that hunters somehow help animals … by killing them while they're in the woods with their families minding their own business.

We hope Kristy will realize that her quest for fame would be better served by following in the footsteps of two of her fellow Idol alums-turned-country-stars. Vegetarian and Idol winner Carrie Underwood, for instance, has won five Grammy Awards and had 13 straight number one singles, while Kellie Pickler—our 2009 Sexiest Vegetarian winner—sold more than 800,000 copies of her debut album. And sensational Simon Cowell condemns fur, promotes spaying and neutering, and shot a public service announcement urging people not to leave dogs in hot cars.

Now is the time for Kristy to use her powerful voice as a weapon and hang up her gun collection for good.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

We are still receiving calls, e-mails, and blog comments about Anapka, the donkey who was recently hoisted up on a parasail and spent a terrifying 30 minutes in the air, braying for help, before crash landing in the ocean and being dragged across the beach in a promotional stunt. Great news: Anapka's days of flying are over after the British newspaper The Sun bought her in response to an onslaught of outraged reader demand.

Vets gave this personable animal a clean bill of health and offers to adopt her and get her into a safe, permanent home are pouring in.

Would you like to help other donkeys who have been abused and hurt? Oh, yes! Please check out the remarkable work of our friends at Animal Rahat.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor

OK, maybe that's a trick question. Who in the world would spend one plugged nickel on this gruesome "novelty"?

We realize that giving attention to things like these "piggy banks"—or those strange dead squirrel beer cozies—is like engaging with a radio shock jock, but these promotions are a bit more than we can overlook.

Doesn't it seem to you that it's long past time for taxidermy novelty items to go the way of the Jackalope? We have sent a letter to the folks at TheCheeky.com with some suggestions. If they are striving for "different," they should consider something like bras made from lettuce or in the shape of cow udders instead of products made from the bodies of dead, embalmed animals.

Written by Jennifer O'Connor