Goldfish shouldn’t be prizes at funfairs

[Pigeonpoodle]

I didn’t think this was a thing any more (the last time I saw goldfish offered as a prize was in the 1980s when I was a kid!)

However, there was a stall doing exactly this at a large firework display/concert on Saturday at a country house in East Suffolk (people from the area can have a good guess at where I mean)… Loads of goldfish in tiny plastic bags ready to be won if you could throw some darts accurately. I then saw a woman later that evening casually swinging her arm back and forth as she walked with a goldfish bag in hand, bashing the poor fish around in its tiny bag.

AIBU to think this practice is cruel and irresponsible, and that the country house who allowed this should be ashamed.

I thought this was banned already!
last time I saw this was 2010 maybe?

I definitely think you should write to the organisers. There are several legal restrictions on this and in some council areas in England a full-on ban.

The Animal Welfare Act makes it an offence to give animals as prize to anyone under 16, and, more importantly, it makes it illegal to cause (or fail to prevent) suffering, and to fail to provide an animal with all of its basic needs.

They never survive for long, we had a couple of fish at a local fete a few years ago and despite rushing them home and getting them into a tank they died a couple of weeks later. I'm glad if it's banned now.

I thought it was banned too, but not on private land apparently. I don’t understand why anyone thinks this is a good thing to do!

I would report this to the council, even on private land they’ll need a licence to hold an event and I think this will breach H&S/animal welfare or trading standards rules.

Definitely call your local council department who issue event licences and report it.

I thought this had been banned years ago! The DDs won goldfish at a fair when they were little, and we had to buy a fish tank on the way home. It cost a fortune and then later we had to get another one because they grew! I hadn’t even realised they could win fish until they actually had the bags in their hands, the people running the stall definitely didn’t care what became of them.

The ones we had as a kid lived for like ten years. My mum was gutted as I think she only said yes to playing the game on the assumptions they’d only live a couple of weeks…

Can’t believe it’s still a thing. Also,selling small animals to kids at fairs should be banned too. Google what happened on a train from Athlone to Dublin a few weeks ago. Would make you sick and make you cry too. Dreadful.

That's unbelievable actually! Definitely report it!

Sil had one that her dd won and it lived for about 20 years 😱 I didn’t know they could live that long!
I didnt think it was still a thing that happened either op, it’s awful. Poor fishies 😭

I think I just got reprimanded by Google AI:

'There is no direct information available on "fish welfare" in relation to a train from Athlone to Dublin, as this is a very specific and unlikely query.'

I'll need better keywords.

One person thinks IABU. I’d be interested to know why!

Can I name the place concerned on here, or would that get this thread pulled?

They had this at a fireworks event I went to a few years ago and the guy had lights on his stall that warmed up the bags of water too much and all the fish died and were just left there floating in the bags. Horrific.

It should be a total ban.

I would name and shame on local social media if I were you OP. It may not be illegal on private land but they won't want bad PR.

Me too. I wonder who thought “I know, wouldn’t it be great if we brought this back to the funfair!” The same people are probably planning to bring back the “freak show” next!

Oh this thread has upset me.
I had absolutely no idea this was still a thing.
I agree with pp that you should publicise this and report it. Perhaps the RSPCA might be interested.

She didn’t say it was about fish. It’s quite easy to find if you leave that out - it was mostly chickens they’d been able to buy and it’s a horrible incident.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c740d4jrkljo?app-referrer=deep-link

Looks like there are still some incidences of this and people being encouraged to report it.

I don’t see why - if there was an objection just the relevant post could be deleted.

Yes.
their suggestion seems to be to contact your local councillor but I’m not sure that addresses the issue of what can happen on private land.

https://www.rspca.org.uk/getinvolved/campaign/petprizes

Ok, the place is Heveningham Hall, near Halesworth, Suffolk.

Looks like it’s banned in Scotland, and some local authorities have specifically banned it across England, wales and NI, but not actually everywhere. So it might not actually be illegal where you are yet, but if it’s brought up enough to the local council they might add themselves to the list of places who ban it.
Even more worth reporting.
https://youraquarium.co.uk/aquarium-blog/rspca-re-launches-nofunatthefair-goldfish-campaign

The bans south of the border are only on council owned land, which is presumably all that councils can make rules about, it wouldn’t help in the OPs case.

Yes, realised that after reading your post. Making a big fuss to the organisers probably the best first thing then.

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