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San Francisco Wants to Ban Goldfish

The San Francisco Animal Control and Welfare Commission wants to take away your goldfish, proposing a bill that would also include a renewed ban on pets like puppies, kittens and hamsters.

The proposed ban is meant to discourage “impulse buys” of pets that sometimes end up at shelters, said commission member Philip Gerrie.

He said goldfish, guppies and other tropical fish were added to the proposed ban because of what he called the “inhumane suffering of fish” and the way the fish are harvested.

“It causes animal suffering,” Gerrie told Fox News Radio. “Whole reefs and eco-systems are being exploited for whatever might be marketable or sellable.”

The Board of Supervisors considered a similar ban last year that would have included dogs, cats, hamsters, mice, rats and guinea pigs – but not fish. That proposed ban was tabled last August.

The proposed fish ban has local pet store owners up in arms.

“The city is taking more and more control,” said Ocean Aquarium owner Justin Hau in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. “They are very stupid.”

Gerrie said that’s the response he expected from pet store owners.

“They have a very strong interest to say it’s stupid,” he told Fox News Radio. “That’s the basic thing with human beings. We exploit everything in the world until it’s exhausted.”

Gerrie accused the “human” species with exploiting the environment – and the fish.

“Humans are overfishing for food,” he said. “There’s a huge market for aquarium fish. That creates a demand.”

As for people who would argue that it’s just a goldfish?

“That’s how we are in this society,” Gerrie said. “Some people say, ‘It’s just a human’ – when it comes to some that kills. It’s a matter of degree. Where do you stop?”

The recommendation from the commission could be a tough sell among the Board of Supervisors.

Supervisor Sean Elsbernd told the San Francisco Chronicle he had doubts the new proposal would pass – calling it “another Animal Welfare idea that will end up in the dustbin of history and go absolutely nowhere.”

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5 Comments

  1. Louis Lee

    June 16, 2011 at 11:13 am

    Seriously? And what do you do with the thousands of pets already in homes. Set them free? Put them in the pound? Euthanize them? Another lame-brain idea from a city that doesn't know when to quit interfering in its citizens' lives!

  2. race_12_1

    June 16, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    They cannot actually be serious? Nothing like forcing your personal agenda and opinion onto the people.

  3. Bebinn

    June 17, 2011 at 10:26 am

    the problem I have with this is those goldfish aren't just sold as pets. The market for feeder goldfish is much larger than the market for pets. I used to run a pet shop. I would sell perhaps 10 goldfish a week as pets, but I would sell hundreds a day as feeders. I liked the customers looking for feeders, they would be repeat customers.

  4. dmhagwood

    June 23, 2011 at 2:35 am

    It's official, California has really gone off the deep end. What's wrong with these people? They're strict about stupid things. They're trying to accomplish a homosexual acceptance agenda with elementary kids, stop circumcision, and now stop the sale of goldfish as pets?

    I just hope California isn't contagious. I wouldn't want my home state to catch the California. The next thing you know, California will make it so that it's compulsory to be a vegan until they figure out how a human can support life by osmosis like plants.

  5. max666

    November 23, 2011 at 7:54 pm

    Makes sense. San Francisco already has enough bottom feeders.