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| Kayak fishing at the mouth of the Kolan River ©2008 Wojo12 |
Now let me say from the outset that I am not a fisherman, I am not a “greenie” nor am I an anti-cruelty activist. From my perspective, it seems that there are basically three type of fishing – fishing for food for personal consumption, fishing for fish for sale both as they are, or processed, and then there’s the so-called “sport-fishing”.
Now for the sake of the debate, let’s assume that the birds of the air were wonderful to eat. Can you picture a man in his backyard or in the bush somewhere, with a rod and reel with a hook and a worm, trying to capture a particular species for dinner. His first catch for the day happened to be a sparrow, hardly a good size for one man. He rips the hook out of the poor bird’s mouth and encourages it to fly away. He baits his hook again and dangles it in the breeze, awaiting a larger species. This time he reels in a honey-eater, which as you can imagine, put up a bigger fight than the sparrow. The man says to himself “caught one of those last week, didn’t taste too good” and again removes the hook from the stricken bird and sets it free, not knowing or caring if it survives. Undaunted, the man goes to the beach – “seagulls are biting this time of year, and they taste better as well” he says as he loads his hook with a tasty morsel. This time success, after 3 attempts he finally catches his lunch.
If this were really happening – can you imagine the outcry from the RSPCA, Greenpeace and Earth-Watch, from Bob Brown, the CWA and the Animal Liberation groups? I have no qualms about anyone fishing for food, but can we continue to allow sport fishing where marlin angling is the equivalent of the now-outlawed foxhunt. The stress to the marlin or any other fish is unknown, the damage to the health of the fish is not known, but we continue to allow this cruel “sport”. Does anyone have any research on the survival of big game fish after being hooked, hauled aboard, and severely stressed and then being thrown back into the water and forgotten? That’s it for me – let me have your views by writing a comment below.
Around My World 
Doug
/ December 4, 2011Hiya Wojo. Sport fishing is not a topic which I have thought very much about, except for feeling much like you on the rare occasions when tv footage of big-game-fishing is shown. How pointless! I was taught by my grandmother to always try to put myself into the situation of the other person or entity; and to treat them the way that I’d prefer to be treated; and I know that I should hate to have a cruel hook stuck inside my mouth and to be reeled into a boat, struggling valiantly against it; to then have it ripped out, leaving me bleeding and in pain.
Unfortuntately, though, big-game-fishing is done by people with big-money; who know where and how to lobby in their own interests; so I don’t expect to see any change to the status-quo for a long, long time.
I applaud your buddhist-like approach; even if the experts might accuse us of anthropomorphism in our concern for how it might feel to the game-fish.
Reflecting further upon your blog-note, here in Bundaberg there is a lot of recreational fishing in local waters and lakes, which I see in a different light from big-game fishing, but which you may also have had in mind when you penned this blog. I know little about recreational fishing, but I do believe that the law actually requires fish of certain sizes and/or genders to be returned to the water — which will necessitate removal of the hook from their mouth; almost certainly causing bleeding and skin/tissue damage in the process; so perhaps a new hook design might be required in the interests of such fish.
It seems to me that a lot of local recreational fishing is therapeutic in nature, providing opportunities for people to have some ‘quiet’ time, perhaps communing with nature, or at least forgetting many of their day-to-day problems for a short while. In a fast-paced world, this would be expected to reduce mental stress and to keep depression at bay. From this perspective, then, I’d see such fishing as a social ‘good’.
Regards: Doug
jowo12
/ December 4, 2011Thanks Doug, I appreciate your thoughts, and your time.
Wojo