This place turns fishing into a cruel game: with prizes in exchange for fish

In Jakarta, a place called Fish.inc offers an indoor fishing experience in an air-conditioned, family-friendly environment. Presented as safe, relaxing entertainment, this fishing session nonetheless hides a real problem.

In the Indonesian capital, you can fish in a clean, welcoming space, with family and friends, with the promise of being able to exchange the fish for gifts (depending on its weight).

Behind this seemingly playful image, visitors to Fish.inc are offered a practice that is extremely painful for animals. Fish are confined to small indoor aquariums and caught on hooks, causing acute pain in their mouth, collapsed gills and breathing difficulties. Releasing them back into the water afterwards doesn't lessen the trauma: the fish are often recaptured, thus repeating the cycle of suffering.

According to scientific studies, fish that have been caught and released undergo severe stress and psychological trauma. Physical pain is only part of the problem: the experience also causes agitation, shock and anxious behavior, compromising the animals' long-term health. Although the activity is presented as harmless play, the biological and psychological cost to the fish is high.

An unsustainable entertainment model

Fish.inc 's practice raises serious ethical questions. Sold as an educational and recreational experience, it involves, in fact, systematic animal abuse. Animals are given no choice or refuge: they are exploited to entertain visitors, transforming a living being into a temporary object for amusement purposes.

Experiments of this kind highlight the need for stricter regulations on attractions that make use of live animals, especially when human entertainment involves physical and psychological suffering for sentient beings. Human enjoyment cannot and must not take precedence over the dignity and health of animals.

(MP/©GreenMe.it/Translation and adaptation: The Global Nature/Pic: Unsplash)