Do Fish Fight?

I overheard a conversation today in which it was purported that violence is abnormal and anyone who lashes out violently must be mentally ill. I was standing in line next to the couple in at a local Wal-Mart (yes, I shop at Wal-Mart); so was privy to a great deal of the conversation. It was only moments later that this same couple suddenly began swearing loudly, flung their cart full of scanned items across the aisle where it slammed into a shelf of summer clearance merchandise, and stormed out of the store. I chuckled at the dichotomy of expressed thought and displayed action. On the way home I honked angrily and flipped off a driver who cut me off. Is violence abnormal?

At home I sat near my backyard pond and watched my Koi swimming peacefully; grazing on roots and occasionally skimming the top for edible debris. I watched for the remainder of the morning and did not observe a single confrontation in my pond. There were near collisions without altercation, and tidbits of food pursued without aggression. Do fish fight? Aside from the infamous fighting Beta, has there ever been a all out brawl between trout documented? How about the guppy; has anyone ever seen a group of guppies riot? Or a salmon slap fest? We see crows killing other birds, and sparrows dive bombing crows. We see wolves and coyotes fight over food, territory, or dominance. Horses fight for similar reasons; and just about every species takes part in aggressive acts within their group. Are they all abnormal, mentally ill? What about Homo sapiens? Is violence among humans an indication of mental illness; and if so, what degree of violence is the threshold between normal and abnormal?

Just about anyone who has been around a toddler will tell you that they bite, kick, and hit. These are traits that we parents teach our children not to do. We teach our children to express their anger and frustration with words or to control the emotions to such an extent that they become buried and perhaps lead to excessive submissiveness or other issues which as adults may lead to psycho-therapy. Very young children naturally throw toys, stomp their feet, fling whole bodies to the floor and writhe or thrash with rage. They bite if they don’t get what they want, and they kick or hit in frustration or anger at having things taken away. And we adults punish them for these natural behaviors, sometimes spanking, swatting, or slapping hands while we say “don’t hit” (now that’s a dichotomy of words and actions). By the time a child reaches school age, they are expected to interact with others without any form of aggression; of those without pre-school or socialization prior to elementary education most children fail during their first days in a classroom.

As a society we speak out against violence but at the same time we promote violence in just about everything we do. From the sports we play to the movies we watch we incorporate violence into our lives. Sports like football, boxing, ultimate fighting, hockey are multimillion dollar businesses. The wrestling industry is promoted to children through mass marketing of action figures and other toys. As parents we may chose to not purchase such toys as guns or swords; but our children soon discover that a finger and thumb can be a gun and a stick becomes a sword. Rather than banning our children from these instruments shouldn’t we instead teach them their proper uses? Movies for adults and children contain scenes or at minimum the suggestion of violence. Examples of children’s movies are: Monsters Inc., Transformers, The Lion King, UP, and I would guess any Disney or Pixar movie ever made (please correct me if I am wrong and tell me what movie does not contain violence). For adults it is difficult to find a movie that does not have some form of violence. Of course this is nothing new; recall the early silent films, the old radio shows, Aesop’s Fables, and the Greek Tragedies. Violence is not new to this world; it is not unique to this century or our current society. Violence and aggression are innate traits in Homo sapiens; even our religions are evidence of our propensity for violence.

If we can understand that violence is simply a part of human nature, that it is a part of our ‘fight or flight’ reaction; perhaps we can begin to address the issues of violence in our society. As we attempt to subdue these urges in our children and ourselves; we also promote these impulses through our media and entertainment industries. How can we expect to decrease the incidence of child/spousal abuse, workplace/school violence, road rage, or hate crimes; while our everyday lives are inundated with images and messages of violence? Simple common sense tells us we cannot. We must change our messages before we can change our behaviors.

It Was a Strange Morning

It was a strange morning; it started when I was chased from my bed and my room by a spider. The creepy thing was on the ceiling and he was racing to the spot directly above my head. I dove from under the sheet and grabbed up a shoe to use as a weapon, but found that I just didn’t have the courage to use it. The spider seeing my hesitation, hastily changed directions and again raced for the part of the ceiling above me; it was at this moment that I made what turned out to be a fortuitous decision to leave my room and spend the morning outside.

Once safely in the great wilderness of my roughly 120’ by 100’ back yard, I was able to release the weapon (shoe) that I had carried with me from my bedroom, and take in the scenery. What I saw made my heart leap in my chest.

In my wonderful yard I have two Koi ponds; one is 3000 gallons and the other a measly 500 gallons. Well last night my son and nephew worked hard to catch the 15 fish and assorted frogs and tadpoles from the large pond and place them in the dinky little five hundred gallon puddle. This had to be done in order for us to drain and make repairs. Needless to say the large koi don’t care much for the small pond. When I relaxed enough to look at my ponds I noticed that all but one of the large koi were lined up at the edge of the pond as though they were watching something on the lawn; and they were.

There in the grass, about five feet from the water was the largest of my koi. Eighteen inches of black and gold lying there dry and looking for all the world like a mounted trophy on a field of green. I rushed to him and quickly snatched him from the lawn tossing him back into the water; thinking about the Oscar that was dry and stiff after spending hours on the carpet yet revived after being placed in water. The koi splashed into the pond and abruptly returned to the top on his side. I noticed that one gill was barely moving, so I leaned over the pond pulled him close to the edge and began resuscitation (no not mouth to mouth; Yuck!), by moving him back and forth and wiggling him just a bit. I figured a little motion to get the water moving through him couldn’t hurt.

It was while I was kneeling at the edge of the pond trying to get a dead fish to swim that I notice now all the koi were within inches of my hands all staring at their friend. I spent almost an hour trying to revive the koi. His gills began to move in a regular but weak fashion and his mouth began to do that gulping motion that they do. But every time I let go of him back onto his side he went. I didn’t know what I was going to do, I knew I couldn’t stay there all day to keep him upright; so I glanced around to see if there was something I could use to help. It was then that I noticed the waterfall was not running so much as trickling; 15 large koi and several frogs and tadpoles added to the five fish already in the pond naturally overloaded the pump.

I let go of my patient long enough to hurry into the house and wake my nephew, who came quickly to help. He cleaned the filter and soon the waterfall was flowing and with the addition of good clean oxygen to the water my patient recovered quickly. I was able after just a few more minutes to let go and he remained upright. It was then that the other koi surrounded him, each swimming close to his head and taking turns as though they were visiting a good friend in the hospital.
When the revived koi finally attempted to swim, the two next largest fish accompanied him; one on each side as though helping to support him in his first steps after such a dreadful accident. I spent the rest of the morning seated near the ponds watching, as the koi kept close watch on their friend. Not once through the morning was he left alone; there was at least one koi with him at all times. By mid-morning the revived koi was swimming without difficulty and traversing the small pond with the others following.

Not many of my fish have names. We have “Target” a white koi with a perfect orange circle on his side, and “lips” a white with orange lips. Then there is “Keiko” black and white marked just like an orca. Now we have “Lazarus”.

This afternoon when I finally returned to my bedroom, I found that spider exactly where I expected to find him; resting comfortably on my pillow. I screamed a little and pointed and Merlin my protector pounced with all of his 150 pounds of canine muscle onto the spider smashing him neatly into the pillow case. It’s time to buy a new pillow.