The images in the following program are highly sensitive and may be as disturbing to viewers as they were to us. However, we have to show the truth about cruelty to animals, praying that you will help to stop it.

HOST: This is the Stop Animal Cruelty series on Supreme Master Television. This week we examine the immense suffering inflicted upon fish by the fishing industry which includes fish farms or aquaculture. Each year billions of fish across the globe are hooked or mercilessly trapped in huge nets and then ripped away from their ocean or freshwater homes.

Eddie Garza(m): In industrial seafood production, massive trawling nets drag sea life from out of the ocean, which can cause extreme pressure changes for fish, and can potentially rupture their swim bladders which are essential for buoyancy.

HOST: In the United States alone, approximately ８.４ billion fish are killed each year for food. More than ４０％ of these animals have been raised on land or ocean-based aquafarms, undergoing an utterly agonizing existence until they are killed.

Nathan Runkle(m): Fish are just as sentient and just as capable of suffering as any land animal is. They have the same capacity to suffer and deserve protection as well. And we're at a crucial point right now with dwindling populations of fish and this is largely due to overfishing and huge trawler nets which essentially clearcut [means removing everything] the ocean of all of their life, sweeping up everyone and everything in their path, because these nets are indiscriminate.

And factory farming is taking place with fish as well. These animals are being confined in crowding concrete troughs and they're having infections and all sorts of welfare problems as well.

HOST: Truly run like a factory, thousands of fish are jammed into small ponds, concrete tanks, or mesh cages. Sometimes there may be as many as ２５ large, adult fish in an enclosure about the size of a bathtub, where they must swim and breathe in utterly filthy water filled with their own excrement.

The obscene conditions mean parasitic infections and diseases like Columnaris, which ravages a fish's gills, skin and fins and is the leading cause of death for farmed fish in the US, run rampant in the imprisoned population.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) says as much as ４０％ of farmed fish die before they can be slaughtered. Finally, near the end of their stay at the aquafarm, the helpless fish are starved for several days. This is done to keep the water less polluted while they are transported to a slaughter facility to be heartlessly massacred.

The state of Texas is the largest producer of farm-raised catfish in the US. In the fall of ２０１０, Mercy for Animals, a US-based non-profit animal advocacy organization conducted an undercover investigation at a fish processing center in Texas. What the group's investigator found was absolutely shocking.

Supreme Master TV (m): Tell us about some of the investigations that Mercy for Animals has done recently.

Eddie Garza(m): Mercy for Animals conducted an undercover investigation between September and December of ２０１０, at a fish slaughter facility in Mesquite just east of Dallas (Texas, USA). At this facility, our undercover investigator documented workers slicing the skin off of live fish, tearing their fins apart, their tails, before ultimately beheading the animals while they were still fully conscious.

These are egregious acts that, if this type of pain were to be inflicted on a dog or cat, they could be fined and potentially incarcerated.

HOST: The footage reveals a grisly and sickening operation where fish are nearly suffocated, skinned and then dismembered all the while aware of the excruciating torture they are undergoing. The peaceful animals were clearly in enormous pain and constantly thrashed about and struggled to escape while the workers brutally severed their fins and ripped their skin off using pliers.

Employees repeatedly sliced live catfish with sharp knives and then brutally cut them in half. Without hesitation they routinely tore the heads off of live fish. The victims who were next in line to be murdered languished in buckets and baskets; their mouths opening and closing repeatedly as they asphyxiated from a lack of water.
[ to die from a lack of oxygen] http://www.mercyforanimals.org/fish/

Skinned Alive:

Cruel Catfish Slaughter Exposed 『Fish have the capacity to experience pain and suffering, like all animals.』 Dr. Lee Schrader, Veterinarian The fish are not stunned or rendered unconscious prior to being skinned alive.

A: You want to clean fish alive.

B: Clean them alive？

A: Yeah.

『This procedure offers a slow, painful, prolonged death to the fish.』 Dr. Debra Teachout, Veterinarian. 『Handling such as that shown in this footage is extremely cruel and heartless and should be outlawed immediately.』 Dr. Jonathan Balcombe, Animal Behaviorist. Forgo Fish Choose Vegan. Mercy for Animals

HOST: Upon viewing the footage, veterinarian Dr. Lee Schrader stated, 『To subject fish to an obviously painful procedure such as the removal of their skin, while they are alive and responsive, is cruel, inhumane and without excuse.』

Currently in the United States there are no laws which protect fish from cruelty or abuse, either in aquafarms or during their subsequent brutal slaughter. Mercy for Animals is striving to have fish protection laws enacted in Texas and has provided evidence of the ongoing carnage at the Texas fish processing facility to members of the state's legislature.

Eddie Garza(m): We submitted all of our documentation, including all of the undercover footage taken by our investigator, and filed an official complaint with the Dallas County District Attorney's (DA's) office. Unfortunately the DA's office declined to prosecute because the state of Texas does not protect fish. In fact there are no federal laws that protect fish either.

Supreme Master TV (m): Has Mercy for Animals taken any action to try to get laws changed？

Eddie Garza(m): We did reach out to all of our Texas state legislators, and asked them to enact new laws that would protect fish from this type of egregious cruelty.

Eddie Garza(m): At this point we have not heard from the Texas legislature, but we are committed to fighting this tirelessly. ((m): Yes.)

HOST: In a study published in the science journal Nature, researchers concluded that the fishing industry is rapidly decimating oceanic ecosystems, with the industry having annihilated ９０％ of the stocks of large ocean fish in just the past ５０ years. In one type of commercial fishing called bottom trawling, gigantic nets the size of a football field are dragged along the ocean floor, sweeping up not only fish, but many other forms of fragile marine life.

Supreme Master TV (m): What are the effects of global industrial fishing？

Eddie Garza(m): The effects are that we're not only killing fish, but other sea life also. Dolphins, turtles, and other beautiful sea creatures are unfortunately also victims of industrial seafood production.

HOST: What about the practice of catching fish just for so-called 『sport？』 When a hook impales a fish through his eye, mouth or cheek, he experiences unbearable agony.

Lynne Sneddon (f): If you accept that fish are capable of pain and fear and stress, you have to accept that if you are simply catching a fish for your own enjoyment, you are potentially causing pain and fear to that fish. And it's been proven that the fish is very stressed, they can suffer mortality and that their subsequent behavior can be affected after they've been released.

Eddie Garza(m): We do know that fish have brains, a central nervous system and nerve endings. These animals have nociceptors which are receptors on the skin that are physiologically similar to the forebrain and midbrain of mammals. And these recent studies suggest that on our video where you saw the fish flopping around in pain were deliberate attempts to escape the workers' blades.

HOST: Fish are sensitive and intelligent, enjoy each other's company and have good memories. They also talk to each other with low-frequency sounds that humans can hear only with special instruments.

Dr. Theresa Burt de Perera, a research scientist at Oxford University, UK states, 『We're now finding that [fish] are very capable of learning and remembering, and possess a range of cognitive skills that would surprise many people.』

How can each of us help to stop the atrocities inflicted upon our fish friends？ According to Eddie Garza and Mercy for Animals, there is one simple solution.

Eddie Garza(m): We want to let people know that they should forgo fish, and choose a vegan diet as the best way to help prevent animal cruelty.

Supreme Master TV (m): Do you have stories you can tell us about people who have been moved to become vegan since they have seen the work of Mercy for Animals？

Eddie Garza(m): Absolutely. We receive emails every single day from people who have decided to choose vegetarian. If I look on the database right now, you'll see several new people who've popped up requesting vegetarian starter kits. People want to know, people have been kept largely in the dark all this time.

And we are here to let them know that there is a better way. (I see) They can change their diet to help the planet, to help animals, and to improve their own health.

HOST: Mercy for Animals is actively raising public awareness about the violent slaughter of fish and other animals by the animal agriculture industry as well as encouraging people to adopt an animal-free diet.

Eddie Garza(m): We do have a lot of outreach events going on daily. Today I've got two interns out in bustling downtown Dallas (Texas, USA), handing out vegetarian literature, inspiring people to make the compassionate choice to be vegetarian.

This afternoon they're also reaching out to some high school students that are at the right age to be able to make choices and really understand that the food that they are consuming is really making a big impact on the entire world.

We also have a lot of different campaigns on the weekends; we've got vegan food giveaways, where we let people try different vegetarian food items, letting them know that they don't have to support animal cruelty to enjoy tasty snacks.

Supreme Master TV(m): What direction is the world going, as far as how we treat animals？

Eddie Garza(m): We are absolutely moving forward; １０ years ago we wouldn't think about campaigns ending battery cages. [small cages in which egg-laying hens are put] And today it's widely accepted that the battery cages should be outlawed nationwide, the public vote says that. We are asking that people now consider the plight of fish.

Eddie Garza(m): Be Veg, Go Green ２ Save the Planet！

HOST: Mercy for Animals and Eddie Garza, we are grateful for your enlightened efforts to inform the public about the cruelty of the fishing industry. Through your benevolent work, you are saving the lives of countless gentle fish and other animals. It is beautiful to see that your initiatives are helping humanity to live in greater harmony with other beings. Mercy For Animals, we wish you every success in all your ongoing and future animal advocacy endeavors.

For more information on fish cruelty, please visit www.MercyForAnimals.org/fish

Hallo, Earth-friendly viewers! Today on Planet Earth: Our Loving Home, we will explore methane hydrate, which is also called flammable ice, methane ice or gas hydrate.

Methane hydrate is a compound of methane and water. It exists mainly under the ocean floor and the permafrost in enormous quantities. Scientists estimate that there could be 500- 2500
gigatons of carbon under the sea floor. The reservoir just in permafrost has about 400 gigatons of carbon, while the total carbon in the atmosphere is around 700 gigatons. 

As methane is a strong greenhouse gas, scientists are concerned that global warming could lead to huge amounts of methane being released from methane hydrate into Earth’s atmosphere, resulting in catastrophic consequences for both humanity and our animal co-inhabitants. 

In order to understand more about methane hydrate and its influence on the earth, Supreme Master Television interviewed Dr. Roy Hyndman of the Pacific Geoscience Center and the Geological Survey of Canada, in Sydney, British Columbia.

Dr. Hyndman is a Canadian geophysicist and a professor in the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, the University of Victoria. One of his major research areas is marine methane hydrate.

He has published 200 scientific journal and volume articles on a wide range of marine and land geoscience research.

He has been involved in numerous international collaborative programs, and has participated and organized research cruises in the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian and Arctic oceans.

Dr. Hyndman is former President of the Canadian Geophysical Union.

He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union, an Honorary member of the Canadian Society of Exploration Geophysicists, and a recipient of the J. Tuzo Wilson medal for contributions to geophysics in Canada.

Now let’s meet Dr. Hyndman.

Methane’s a very strong greenhouse gas, so if you put it into the atmosphere it contributes to warming the global system. The methane doesn’t last very long in the atmosphere; it oxidizes and converts to carbon dioxide.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
The carbon dioxide we’re putting in now will be around for a long time.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
Hydrates are a kind of chemical composition that we’ve known about for a long time in the laboratory, but only quite recently were they appreciated in nature.

So perhaps thirty years ago they were recognized on the deep sea floor. And the reason it took so long is if you bring them to the surface they melt immediately, so rarely could they be preserved.

When people brought sea floor samples up, they’re gone. They look like ice, perhaps a little more like dry ice, carbon dioxide ice, but similar physical properties, similar densities, speed of sound and so on.

There are some special differences, but mostly they are like water. They occur when the pressure is high and temperatures are low, so they will not occur under normal surface conditions.

They occur primarily beneath the deep sea floor, not beneath the continental shelf; it’s too shallow, the pressure’s not high enough and the temperature’s too high.

Most commonly on the continental slopes around the world, that’s the transition between the continental shelf and the deep sea floor; it’s on the way down most of them occur.

They’re not very common in deep sea basins.

Supreme Master TV:
So, that is about a few hundred meters?

Dr. Roy Hyndman: 
They need at least about 600 metres. The very deep sea basins are 2000 to 4000 meters (6500 to 13000 feet), so it’s between the continental shelf where it’s shallow and the deep sea floor, that slope between the two.

They also occur under land in the Arctic where permafrost occurs, but only in the far North where, as I say, permafrost is sufficiently cold and you get down deep enough; they also can occur there. They don’t occur under land at normal, temperate, middle latitudes like here.

Supreme Master TV:
And how much of those deposits are at the bottom of the sea or in the sea? Is it as big as coal or petroleum? 

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
There have been some estimates that there’s much more than our conventional hydrocarbons. I think in recent years the estimates are getting smaller, so the amount is still very large, but probably not as large as once thought.

However we know rather little about how common they are. We only have the necessary surveys in very small areas in a few places around the world. And only in very few places have we drilled into them.

Supreme Master TV:
So what are scientists trying to learn from those samples from the drilling of methane hydrate? Is it about the history of Earth or the history of the ocean?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
Part of it’s to get bigger pictures of what is at the bottom of the ocean that records past geological history.

A lot of what we know about the past climate change comes from the bottom; mud and sand get older as you go down and you get a picture of what conditions were. You have to go down and actually see whether that’s correct calibration or testing of the methods.

And there’s a lot of things you cannot do with geophysical measurements; we measure the chemistry and state of the material, and the muds and sands that it is deposited in.

So a lot of things you cannot get remotely; you have to actually go down and get samples.

We make measurements in the bore holes as well, in the drill holes, not just bring samples up. We run special geophysical tools down the bore holes.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
That’s the best we can do.

Supreme Master TV:
So there is a lot of research going on?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
A lot of research going on.

Supreme Master TV:
What about technology? Is there also technology for exploration in preparation, and how advanced are we in that field?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
No gas has been produced from the deep-sea floor from this material, none.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
Most work that has been done to produce gas from it has been in the Arctic, because there you can work on land. It’s very cold, but at least you’re on land.

Supreme Master TV:
I see.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
The biggest project has been in Northern Canada, called the Mallik Project, where I think that they are just now in their fourth year trying to. They started with drilling to tell how much was there and are now at this stage of seeing whether you can get gas out of it.

So, I think a long way from doing it economically but they are getting closer.

HOST:
In order to further study methane hydrate, ocean floor exploration is an important means of scientists’ research.

HOST:
Welcome back to today’s Planet Earth: Our Loving Home on methane hydrate and its relation to climate change. How did methane hydrate come into being?

Although scientists do not know all the details; they know that it is a result of the collaborative work by micro-organisms, a certain temperature and pressure.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
They’re a little like conventional oil and gas; they come from organic material in the muds and sands beneath the sea floor.

The difference is that they’re low temperature; they’re produced by bacterial action on the organic material that’s buried.

Supreme Master TV:
The process starts from the bottom not from the top?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
It starts from the bottom, it starts at some depth, and it releases the methane gas as this reaction takes place.

You break down this plankton or it can be woody material from rivers, and when it breaks down it produces this gas.

It’s similar to swamp gas, sewer gas; all these things that we know about on land, it’s a similar process.

And at low temperature, in contrast to conventional gas, which is mainly made at high temperature, with the chemical cracking, breaking down things at high temperature, this is done at low temperature.

So it’s the material that’s in the mud and sand on the sea floor steadily making this gas and it’s rising.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
So the gas is steadily rising continuously, or we always in the ocean have a continuous release of methane all the time?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
We do, but as it comes up, as it gets near the sea floor, it gets to the condition where you can form this ice. Ice is not stable, it’s too hot when you get deeper, and as the gas comes up it gets cooler, it combines with the water in the mud and sand, because it’s high porosity to produce gas hydrate, usually in the porous spaces of the mud and sand.

So normally it doesn’t reach the sea floor; it gets trapped in this frozen ice material. Where it’s too hot you can collect some gases, greenhouse gases. That could be released. In some of our sea-marine surveys, yes we have seen methane coming out of the sea floor in kind of plumes of gas.

They’re not very common, but yes, we definitely do see them and we do map them.

HOST:
With the help of modern techniques, scientists are now gradually uncovering methane hydrate’s secret beneath the ocean floor.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
Until ten-twenty years ago, most of the expeditions were done with real submarines with people in them. We had one here, we had a research submarine; it can go to quite deep waters.

They were very expensive, they were dangerous, required so much safety precautions, they could not work for very long, they would go down for one hour, and you spend a day or two preparing and finishing and you stay down at the bottom for an hour.

Since that time, most work is done by remote vehicles on a cable, with a lot of different instruments, including TV cameras and video and acoustic seismic systems and electrical systems, and currently there’s chemistry, there is a large number of things that are put on these vehicles.

So they’re actually much better. You can sit in the laboratory on a ship or sometimes you can sit in your laboratory here and look what’s going on.

Supreme Master TV:
And they can measure the hydrate inside the water?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
There are a few places where you actually see hydrate on the sea floor; I can show you pictures of them.

Supreme Master TV:
That would be very interesting to see.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
That does happen in very few places. The TV camera, which you can look at in the laboratory; while it’s happening, while it’s swimming around, you can see the gas hydrate. You can see the types of animals and bacteria living on the methane itself that’s coming out, they can use this as a food source.

So you get more animals and plants in the areas where there is some methane coming out of the sea floor. 

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
They are specialized, making use of this energy.

HOST:
The stability of the frozen methane hydrate under the ocean floor or permafrost is vital for keeping the balance of our global carbon cycle and eco-system. 

With the continuous temperature increase in the Arctic area, it has become a concern of ecologists and climatologists.

Do we have a basic understanding at what conditions such gas can be released, and pose some kind of ecological danger?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
Quite a lot of work has been done on that question.

People were particularly concerned whether this is a positive feedback, that if we warm the global atmosphere and oceans that will cause methane release and that will produce more warming, that will go round and round until we get very rapid warming.

Abrupt warming periods back in geological history have been suggested to have come from this process.

HOST:
The process, Dr. Hyndman mentioned, is actually a new theory called the “hydrate hypothesis” regarding climate change, which asserts that a feedback loop of methane hydrate has caused global warming in Earth’s history.

Then this leads us to ask, how is the present situation of the methane ice in the Arctic area?

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
The gas hydrate is usually below the permafrost, so actually quite deep under the land; it can be 500, (to) 800 meters down, so the time of that to warm is very slow, but that’s under the land.
 
But under the sea it is a little different; it can be shallower. It is possible that there could be…

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
Even shallower than 100 meters.

Supreme Master TV:
So that would be subjected to the sunshine-caused temperature change.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
There are definitely places around the world where changes in the water temperature could produce gas release.

Dr. Roy Hyndman:
We can see it bubbling up from the ocean, places like the Mackenzie Delta in the Arctic, where you see a gas coming out of the ground, out of the water channels bubbling continuously.

HOST:
At the 2008 annual conference of the European Geosciences Union in April 2008 in Vienna, Russian polar scientist Natalia Shakhova along with her colleagues presented their latest research results.

According to their observations, the methane concentration in the sea water near the Siberian coast has been highly saturated, while high concentrations of methane can also be found in the air over the sea.

In some places, the methane concentration even reached five times normal values. At the same time, measurements conducted by helicopter also showed the presence of higher methane concentrations at altitudes as high as 1,800 meters.

These results clearly show that the methane is being released in some places in the Arctic area. The release of methane in the Arctic area is a severe warning to all humanity. It is the time now for all of us to change our lifestyles. Let’s go veg, be green and save the planet.