I am a 90s baby, so I grew up during a time when sea monkeys were all the rage. I did not, however, actually have any. Then as I became a teenager, either their popularity began to waver or I just simply wasn’t exposed to them as much, because they did sort of disappear from my radar for quite a long time. It is only in recent years that I have started to see sea monkey products actually being sold again in toy shops that it made me, now a fully grown adult, stop and think about what sea monkeys actually were.
As a child, I truly thought that they were monkeys that lived in the sea. And I think a large part of that was due to the marketing that was used by the manufacturers who definitely had little animations of monkey-looking sea creatures. Nowadays though, I note that the drawings are definitely a bit more realistic to what sea monkeys actually are. Sea monkeys are in fact a type of brine shrimp, that have been genetically modified to live longer and grow larger. According to the official Sea Monkey website, common brine shrimp only live for a month, whilst sea monkeys can live for around 5 years if properly cared for. Their eggs can survive outside of water for extended periods of time, and ‘reactivate’ when added to water. Again the official website states that this is to ensure that droughts do not impact on brine shrimp reproductive cycles, and it is why they are able to sell the packets of eggs.
And I am not sure how I feel about this…
My initial reaction is that this is just unethical. Shrimp in general have been added to the list of sentient lifeforms, and I have no reason to believe that these Sea Monkeys would be an exception to this. Now, granted, they are never sold as live sea monkeys – the eggs are sold and are not actually hatched until the buyer sets up the tank and adds the eggs to the water. But these are also ‘pets’ that are marketed to children, and even the official website states that they are a hassle free and very low maintenance pet for a person to have. Hasn’t the same been said about hamsters for years, even though it is very much common knowledge now that hamsters have complex needs and should not be left to the care of a child alone?
Another interesting discussion that sea monkeys raise though is the fact that they are lab grown creatures. They do not exist in nature in a wild state. They have been bred and created for the exact purpose of being sea monkey pets. Now as someone who adores the Jurassic Park movies, I feel the phrase ‘just because you could doesn’t mean that you should’ (slightly paraphrased of course) is very much relevant here. Yes you could breed these new creatures to be used as a starter pet for children, but should you have done so? Should you really have made these creatures if you are just going to leave them to the mercy of a child who doesn’t know any better or a parent that doesn’t care? Again I come back to the point that for me these creatures are still (so far as I can tell) sentient beings. But even if they weren’t, even if it was proved in a few years that actually sea monkeys are not considered sentient, does that still make the whole existence moral? Why breed a creature purely for entertainment purposes? Is there any situation in which this could be moral?
For me, as an individual, the idea of buying sea monkeys is an absolute no. Especially not for children. I honestly don’t think I would ever be comfortable buying an animal for a child unless I was also willing to take on that responsibility of caring for the animal too. Ok maybe I am a bad example, because there is no animal alive that I would not want to take responsibility to care for, but I’m sure you all understand the meaning. Again for me, I don’t see how the very existence of sea monkeys could ever be deemed ethical, and I think that it is an important discussion to have. Because sea monkeys are not cute and cuddly and fluffy, and so are very clearly overlooked by most of society because they’re ‘just shrimp’. I would never try to draw a line between creatures, where on one side it is fine to harm them but on the other side it is not, yet this is how many parts of society still think. And of course a large part of this comes down to the lack of education around sea monkeys, or just sea creatures in general, which means many people are not even aware of their sentience.
Taylor Talks Vegan 