Disclaimer: This article is based on actual news from the real world – honestly! However, it has been sprinkled with a healthy dose of satire.
BUENOS AIRES — For years, a pair of goldfish named Fede and Magui lived in a glass display case on the facade of a sushi restaurant. Nobody appeared to have considered that a fish tank mounted to the front of a building might get warm.
Then someone who worked for a nonprofit called Jaulas Vacías (“Empty Cages”), an anti-speciesism sanctuary that already houses more than 200 rescued animals, passed by the restaurant. Jaulas Vacías’ lawyer, Matías Trufero, subsequently filed a lawsuit that the goldfish display violated Argentina’s animal cruelty statute. The court agreed,
A couple of non-human persons in a non-human person tank. (santuario.jaulas.vacias)
The Court of First Instance in Criminal, Misdemeanor and Offenses No. 12 did not simply order the fish moved into the shade or inside the restaurant. It went a step further and declared Fede and Magui to be sentient beings under the law, legal subjects with rights, like corporations or Christianity in America. The two goldfish out in front of a sushi restaurant now have more standing under Argentine law than the tuna inside the restaurant.
On the witness stand, fish specialist Carlos José Aga said the goldfish’s living conditions were “more or less the same as putting two polar bears in a cage inside a sauna.” Aga then offered to adopt them, and the court agreed. He moved them from their 40-liter display into a 2,500-liter tank at his house. “Fish are like astronauts,” he explained. There was more context to his astronaut comment, but it’s funnier not to include it and instead have you try to imagine what point he might have been trying to make.
Argentina has been quietly assembling a body of law in which animals are people-adjacent for over a decade. In 2014, a judge declared an orangutan who had spent 20 years in the Buenos Aires Zoo a “non-human person,” and she was eventually shipped to a sanctuary in Wauchula, Florida, which seems counterproductive given both the ruling and Florida. Since then, the courts have also recognized mares and canaries as non-human persons. There is a pending “Sentient Law” project that would write the whole idea into the Argentine Civil Code.
What all this means for anyone who eats meat is unknown at this time, but it’s not looking great.
This story is based on fully factual news, but if we got it wrong, blame these guys, we’re just here to make it funny.
