Seeing the fish alive connects them to the living world? So why not go the whole way and take the visitors to the dead world by having them kill, cut and eat these sea creatures, this will really connect them to the world of cruelty first hand.

Posted by: Tula | June 1, 2009 06:11 PM

What can one possibly say about this? I have the same reaction I get when our local no-kill shelter holds its fundraisers at a western/big game style saloon. Yeah right--save dogs and cats, but make money for them by serving up cows, boar, antelope and god only knows what else...

Posted by: Kelley | June 1, 2009 07:02 PM

That is pretty backwards. Can you imagine the outrage if a zoo had a similar program where after the visitors get a tour of the birds and hoofed animals, go to another room and sample ostrich and camel meat? What the Shedd Aquarium is doing is no different, and sets a bad example if respect and conservation is their goal. It seems like their true mission is just making money.

Posted by: Heather | June 1, 2009 08:18 PM

I am a Chicagoan and read the very unsettling article about Shedd Aquarium visitors being taught to make sushi. If zoos and aquariums truly want to be places that advocate animal welfare, they should only serve vegetarian entrees and snacks.

Posted by: Brien Comerford | June 1, 2009 08:51 PM

THIS IS JUST AWFUL, what the hell is wrong with these people? Animals don't deserve this to happen to them. Ugh!

Posted by: Gina | June 1, 2009 09:41 PM

So I guess trying to get fish known as sea kittens was given up?

Because this has to be the first fish related article where fish weren't called sea kittens.

Posted by: Pepsi One is Fun | June 1, 2009 10:28 PM

It's so easy and fun to make veggie sushi. The Aquarium should have had a fun workshop on how to make veggie sushi as an alternative to killing fish. Try a roll filled with a spicy jarred tapenade of roasted eggplant or olives with slices of crisp cool cucmumber and a little bright red roasted red pepper. Yum

Posted by: Joanna | June 2, 2009 12:47 PM

My first reaction was: You have to be kidding!! But then I thought: Hey, wait a minute...

Most people today do not seem to have a clue where their food comes from. So I say, why not show them?

Let people go to a petting zoo and handle a cute calf, and then sit them down to a plate of osso bucco and tell them about veal?

When I was a kid in school, we toured the Starkist Tuna processing plant every year. We watched to whole process, from the fish being dumped off the boats onto the dissembly line, where we watched as they were cut up, fileted, and packed into cans. We were each given a can of tuna to take home as a souvenier. Yippee. What I mainly remember about those tours was the smell. Nothing like the smell of dead sea kittens in the morning!!

I don't know what is happening in other states, but according to my local newspaper, the Orange County Register, we are about to have a massive dairy cow holocaust because dairy farmers cannot make enough money on the milk they sell to stay in business. I did notice while I was at the supermarket buying a $4.00 carton of 8th Continent Soymilk (great taste and great for keeping cholesterol low, by the way)that a quart of cow's milk was 68 cents. I guess those California Cows are not going to be so happy when they are in Unhappy Meals at McDonalds.

Posted by: Rev. Meg Schramm | June 2, 2009 01:12 PM

Eating the fish you think beautiful, that is us. Eat everything and not care what it is. Why do we consume everything possible? Its wrong. But a shark might feel the same way when it eats its prey.

Posted by: DDD | June 2, 2009 02:20 PM

Meg, There has to be something wrong with your cattle statement. There is no other state I know where milk is that cheap.

If this is true about the 68 cents, why are farmers NOT contracting with other states to ship milk? They get money from that and stay in business.

Personally, I think there's something wrong with this statement - and if this is a fact, there needs to be something done about it. Suffering to be milked a bit more is better than just killing an animal for food. Then you have to raise new ones for milk when things get turned around, causing more problems environmentally.

(BTW - there is no such thing as sea kittens. I wish you guys would quit doing that - it makes PETA look silly, and frankly is disrespectful to the fish).

Posted by: mac | June 2, 2009 03:46 PM

Mac, I have not a clue why this is going on, but the Orange County Register might have the article online. I do know some farmers are selling their herds to dairies in other states and getting out of the business.

The article was in last Friday's edition.

Posted by: Rev. Meg Schramm | June 2, 2009 05:16 PM

Meg--Dairy farmers here in PA are in the same boat--milk sells for less in the stores than it costs them to "produce" it. I am waiting to hear about upcoming slaughters im my state as well.

Posted by: Kelley | June 2, 2009 08:21 PM

This reminds me of all of the bar-b-ques they have at Woodland Zoo here in Seattle. It makes me sick. At my last job, they had their "summer pinic" there. I declined to attend.

There is a "petting zoo" there, complete with all of the farmyard animals that people so enjoy petting and ooh-ing and ahh-ing over one minute, and then roasting them the next, just outside of the zoo ... no doubt the animals held captive inside can smell what's going on.

Posted by: Barbara | June 2, 2009 08:54 PM

Our zoo (and I imagine most zoos) have places where you can get hot dogs, pepperoni pizza, philly cheesesteaks, etc. And I always point out to my mom that it's so sad, people go there to look at and admire animals and learn something...and then they turn around and eat an animal. "Yeah, it's sad" my mom usually says while eating her own hot dog. Argh. (I'm a vegetarian.)

Posted by: Rita | June 3, 2009 04:31 PM

There is a Legal Seafoods right outside of the New England Aquarium in Boston. (sigh)
What's problematic in their "lesson" about over-fishing is that they put value only on particular species of fish over other, presumably, less important species(?) This idealogy, as it were, transcends all human-animal coexistence. We value our poodles like a member of our family, but retired race horses? Forget 'em. Chickens and cattle? Fry 'em and forget 'em. Very odd. I blame marketing to a very large extent. The meat industry speaks to us from a very early age and creates these "classes" of animals - those that feel pain and sleep in our beds with us vs. those that are soulless walking bar-b-ques. Pretty sickening when you think about it.

Posted by: Doug D | June 4, 2009 10:33 AM

Considering the life of a dairy cow I would think a quick death preferable. First they are born in a poop covered dairy yard and removed from their mother when all their natural instinct is to be with their mother and nurse. Then they are housed in a bare poop filled area with a bunch of other mother deprived babies and given no chance to graze as they would prefer. They wait patiently until they can be bred. Once they give birth their babies are removed and they are shifted to the milking barn (a huge covered concrete slab). There they wait and eat and poop for several years. Never to nurse their babies, never to walk in a green pature, just stand and breath poop fumes so strong they make you sick and burn your lungs. Once their bodies begin to slow down and their feet and legs deform from standing on concrete after just four or five years when the natural life span is suppose to be 20 years from this endless repeat breeding they are moved to a sluaghter house. At the sluaghter house they bake in the sun waiting for their appointment with death in another poop filled yard. Yeah I really want a glass a milk. Let all the dairies in California go out of business they are cruel and unnecessary. And don't kid yourself into thinking organic milk is any better. The only significant difference for an organic cow is they get to graze sometimes. Personally I would rather eat a dead animal than force a cow to live like this for a lifetime to have cheese.

Posted by: Joanna | June 4, 2009 01:44 PM

Ok the comment posted by Heather made me lol - not because it's funny but because of the sheer stupidity of most humans - and than I thought...you know what, they do do that...take the DC zoo for example they have a "petting zoo" with cows and pigs etc while selling hamburgers and hotdogs at their food stands...there is a conservation park in South Africa that has alligators on exhibit and sells alligator burgers on the premise...it even states in their FAQ's that they do not kill their alligators but obtain the meat from somewhere else...why are people so braindead?

Posted by: Kristen | June 5, 2009 12:03 PM

As a vegitarian of many years, and supporter of PETA I have some thoughts. While I do not eat meat of any kind for several reasons; compassion for animals, unwillingness to eat something that has been tortured and genetically modified, and for health reasons. I cannot say that I don't have any leather in my wardrobe. I realize and struggle with this conflict of ethics, but realize too that if you wear leather, eat ANY animal, drive a car, or any number of a thousand things that harm a living thing then pass judgement on others...is hypocritical. We all do things that harm and so to pass judgement on others only exposes hypocitical traits in ourselves.
Instead of trying to tell people who eat meat, wear leather, or hunt and fish that they are evil, I try to cultivate compassion and try to do less dammage/harm each day to animals, people, and our planet.
Further I realize that while many are not as successful as I am, many are far more successful at preventing this harm and respecting life.
While there is a knee jerk reaction to the idea of a place that is focused on cherishing life giving instruction on ending it. It is worth examing not whether the Shedd is living up to a perfect ideal, but acting in the best interest of this life in an imperfect world.
The vast majority of living things on this world eat other living things, and learning to become more compassionate and responsible may not be the ideal, but it may be making things better overall.

Posted by: Jack | June 9, 2009 10:13 AM

My husband, children, and I have recently relocated to the Chicago area. My son is a shark lover. We've been to Shedd a couple of times and are thinking of joining. I had NO IDEA that this "event" had taken place. I'm going to do what I can to contact the appropriate persons and share with them OUR concerns. As kosher-keeping Jews (who eat vegetarian MOST of the time), I taught my children very early in life about not eating "dead pig". They have a real compassion for ALL animal life: when they saw an earthworm on the concrete recently, they immediately put it back on soil "to go be with its family", my son declared. I'm by far not a perfect parent, nor are my children, but we sure do try to make the world a better place for ALL animate beings.

Posted by: Sharla Grossman | June 26, 2009 03:28 AM

Life is so abundant, I don't think eating another living thing is wrong. There's a way to do it and a way to go about it and I honestly don't see anything morally wrong with this service/program they are offering. I think it's in poor taste, but to each their own!

Posted by: Christy | July 9, 2009 09:02 PM

i want to die. i hate the human race and i hate being apart of it.

Posted by: T | July 11, 2009 05:29 AM

T, I understand how you feel. Some of us are way too sensitive to the suffering of other creatures. The seemingly inhuman behaviour of people who systematically cause pain and suffering to animals can make us despise humans, in fact it is difficult not to view us as a virus on the earth. But there are a lot of caring people out there and I believe eventually a more spiritual awareness will see things improve, maybe not in our lifetimes, but things are moving towards this. Hold on to that thought and believe in the goodness in the majority.

Posted by: M | July 15, 2009 07:33 PM

Christy why are you still here then?

Posted by: Mike | July 20, 2009 05:22 AM