I haven't posted in a while but have decided to start keeping up with my blog again especially as the fishing season begins to wear on. For a class this semester I was given an assignment to read about the welfare of fishes as well as PETA's stance on fishing which led me to this blog post. Hope you all enjoy and look for more posts in the near future.
-Pat
Recently I read PETA’s stance on fishing and although they presented many arguments as to why fishing should be banned I feel that someone should present the other side of the issue. PETA suggests that through recreational fishing we as humans torture fish just for “sport”, and that catch and release fishing can be detrimental to a fish’s health leading to a 43% mortality rate of fishes six days after being caught and released. These statistics and effects vary by species and upon finding the research they used for their statistics I found it was a study looking at maximum summer tournament mortality in Oklahoma during 1995. This is not characteristic of most catch and release fishing and shouldn’t be presented as such.
Personally fishing was one of the first things I was exposed to as a child, going out on the boat with my mother and father from the time I was old enough to walk. Some of the few and most fond memories of my childhood go back to sitting in a boat with my family catching small sunfish and a few bass. Once I became older my direction shifted more towards competitive fishing, where I began fishing small tournaments at the age of 18. Now I am vice president of the Virginia Tech Bass Fishing Team and a senior fisheries science student at Virginia Tech, and as such I enjoy getting involved with youth and seeing their fascination not only with fishing but with fish and learning more about them.
As an angler I have always tried to look out for fish populations and their overall wellbeing. From the large proportion of anglers that I know, none of them intend to harm the fish. It is true that there is some incidental mortality while fishing, but from my personal experience catch and release anglers typically try to hook the fish, reel it in quickly, and try to limit the fish’s exposure to air. In PETA’s stance on fishing they portray worst case scenarios which aren’t overly common when sport fishing. In fact the most popular sport fish in the United States, the largemouth bass, typically show catch and release mortality rates of less than 5% and commonly less than 1%.
In PETA’s position on fishing it portrays recreational angling in the worst light possible presenting rare events as common practices. In the end some anglers are more conservation minded than others and although many observe ethical practices when catching and handling fish it is impossible to say that all fishermen do so. From my experiences fishing has been an overall great experience that I hope to share with my own family someday and pass on the ideas of conserving fish populations and fishing for future generations.
If you feel the same way that I do about the importance of recreational fishing, please take a kid fishing. They are the future of the sport and conservation of a resource we value so much!
