The great thing when you're travelling: you have time to mull over the big questions. Like, do fish know whether they're happy or not.

In Buddhism, it seems that merit can be gained not just with good behaviour, but with money. You can buy a caged bird or a trapped fish, and gain credit toward your next reincarnation when you set it free. The animals are caught especially for this purpose by people who make their living in this way. A parodox is obvious, but that doesn't necessarily help you decide the best approach to the merit-gaining business. What's a conscientious person supposed to do? Participate or not...is your merit increased if you buy a fish and release it into the river? Answer a-g...
a) Yes, because you're setting free a caged beast
b) No, because you're condoning the behaviour of the trapper, who will go and do it again
c) Yes, because the fish might be someone you cared about, like your dead uncle. Best to check for a major characteristic feature (bald patch, facial twitch, cigarette habit), before deciding. That fish might be YOU next time around. Bummer!
d) No, because the fish has no idea that it's trapped and unhappy. It's just a fish
e) Yes: although trappers are scurrilous opportunists, they have to make a living somehow and you'll gain merit for being compassionate to them
f) No, because the fish is from some pond in a back garden in the suburbs, and will die as soon as it's put the river. Or there's too much of a temperature difference between the water in it's basin and the river it's getting dumped into. Then you'll get negative merit for killing it
g) Don't know. It's all too much

Maybe if we had score charts available for each option that would help. What about terrapins? Or unappealing fish like eels? The scientists are, as ever, baffled.