For people interested in the inner lives of animals, it’s a marvelous time. Hardly a week seems to pass without researchers describing how some four-legged or two-winged creature possesses characteristics once thought unique to humans. Thoughtful elephants, crows who hold grudges, syntactical prairie dogs, optimistic bumblebees: the menagerie is wild and wonderful — but it has a big, fish-shaped gap.

Even among scientists — and science journalists, too — who recognize the intelligence of other animals, fish have been mostly overlooked. This isn’t just because methodology-obsessed researchers refuse to acknowledge what’s common-sense evident, as can happen with animals who aren’t easy to study in controlled settings. People just don’t think fish have much going on. Even ethical vegetarians often feel no qualms about sinking their teeth into a tuna.

Yet there’s reason to think we’re underestimating fishes. Behind those seemingly fixed eyes and expressionless faces are very complex brains. Some researchers have challenged the dogma about fishes; they’ve described sophisticated forms of thought and behavior, including tool-making and the fundaments of language, in creatures that are supposed to be little more than swimming automata. Might they have feelings? Memories? Self-consciousness? Might they even be, in some sense, persons?

Of course, one could also ask: Why does any of that matter? My answer is: Because life’s richness is a treasure, and deserves to be understood in its fullness. I consider my writing on animal intelligence to be variations on this theme. And as Earth’s dominant form of vertebrate life, fish are overdue for some attention.

Funding

With the funds raised, I will report and write a reported essay that dives into the science of fish consciousness.

My work will involve reading scientific and cultural literature on fish brains and behavior; speaking with scientists; swimming with fishes in the northeastern United States; taking photographs to accompany the article; and transmuting dry fact into narrative life.

If you’re curious about fish, a fan of John McPhee or David Quammen, or all those things, this is the article for you.