Ran across this in my file, probably have had it for a few years. Came from Bob Montgomery written for BASS magazine.'' We see ''anthropomorphism'' occur innocently, when dog and cat owners dress their pets in human attire or turn the TV on for them when they must leave them home alone. We see it more sinisterly in the tactics of animal rights activists, who want you to believe that fish feel pain and fear when they are hooked. The fact is, that's just not so, according to Dr. James Rose at the University of Wyoming. Concerned that fishing is being challenged on grounds of humaneness, Rose reviewed the literature, studied the biology, and produced ''The Neurobehavior Nature of Fishes and the Question of Awareness and Pain''. He concludes that fish are incapable of feeling pain and fear because their brains are so much different than those of humans. In fact, they operate from the brain stem, while we function from a much more developed forebrain. ''The fundamental neural requirements for pain and suffering are now known,'' he says.''Fishes lack the most important of these required neural structures, and they have no alternative neural systems for producing the pain experience. Therefore, the reactions of fishes to noxious stimuli are without conscious awareness of pain. The evidence supporting this conclusion is extensive and diverse, thus permitting a high degree of confidence in its correctness.''
