Ethics in coarse fishing?

[Ashikata]

Hi all

 

Firstly apologies for barging in here and asking for help/advice right away!

 

I have an interview for a grad job tomorrow, and as part of the morning long process have been asked to prepare a 7 minute long presentation on a topic unrelated to the role/industry (marketing). I figured I would try something a bit different, and opted for angling.

 

I've been a fan since a young boy, I started when I was around 9 and fished solidly for a few years. I never really got into the tackle tart element, I preferred to keep it simple and was wholly content to lug my backpack-come-chair up and down a river and climb down a weed infested bank to find a good fishing spot, opting for worms, maggots and whatever was in the fridge at the time as my bait of choice. In recent years I've become seperated from the hobby which kept me out of trouble as a kid and have lost track of all the new advancements and indeed the political scene surrounding the sport today.

 

Anyway I digress. I've decided to focus my presentation on the ethical arguments surrounding fishing as a sport. Most notably the arguments against, including fish livelihood, claims of cruelty and the effect on the immediate surroundings (birds nests, other water species, littering, poaching and other damage). I will also include information about the moral code of respectful anglers, success rates of catch and release methods, impact on the economy and leisure industry.

 

This sounds like a lot for 7 minutes, but it won't be in huge depth - it's just a very brief overview of surrounding concerns, hence I'm looking for a few ideas or major considerations from those of you a little more up to speed than I. It needs to be as unbiased as possible and I intend to conclude positively.

 

Anyway, I hope this doesn't flare any tempers or raise objections. I would much appreciate some advice and shall certainly take everything on board, and indeed feed back to you afterwards

 

Thanks!

[lutra]

Have you tried putting ethics in the AN search? That will bring up a lot of stuff.

[Steve Walker]

Coarse fishing ethics? Try the Sthuffolk Sthour, that's in Ethics

 

Sorry, couldn't help it.

 

Serious answer is that there is a very small core of beliefs that you will find everyone agrees on, and a great body of strongly and sincerely held beliefs over which a punch-up can be easily generated.

 

For instance, everybody is against littering. Pretty much everybody is in favour of obeying the law relating to licences and closed seasons. Nobody will support taking coarse fish to eat illegally, most are against it under any circumstances, a few see nothing wrong in doing so with permission (but probably never exercise the right). Many people livebait for pike, many others dislike the practice to varying degrees, others don't do it but see nothing wrong with it. Others hold similarly polar views on the use of keepnets and the acceptability of match angling. Some believe that the use of dedicated unhooking mats and antiseptic gel is essential, others don't. That's without even considering what's considered acceptable behaviour towards other anglers. If you widen your net to game fishing, things get really odd, with some fantastically idiosyncratic views on what is considered fair angling - I recently read a very entertaining argument on another forum about how much of a dry fly may be submerged before it becomes a wet fly and therefore not allowed under a certain fishery's rules.

[Steve Burke]

Many of the UK's angling bodies have recently joined to form the Angling Trust. On it's site you should find the old SAA/NAA Code of Conduct that should help you.

 

As for the pain issue see http://www.eaa-europe.org/fileadmin/templa...-05-2003-EN.htm.

 

Good luck.

[BoldBear]

It would take a book to cover everythng but here is my views on just one part of this subject

 

Do fish feel pain? I will leave it up to you to decide for yourself after reading this.

 

As I see it Fish are cold bloodied creatures whos brain does not have many of the parts including the pain receptors that warm bloodied animals do.

It does however have other highly developed senses that are more developed than most warm bloodied animals do.

 

Well respected scientists like Dr. Alwyne Wheeler (now deceased) who studied fish at the Natural History Museum for many years and was respected by fish scientists all across the world (and who was not an angler) wrote that a fishes mouth was designed so that it could cope with the lacerations which often occurred during its natural eating habits, when eating and filtering for food items such as spined water insects, fractured snail shells, sticklebacks and other such things and in fact if a fish did feel discomfort when feeding it would probably starve or be severely underweight at the very least.

So I doubt that a small prick from a small hook would be anything other than a slight annoyance after mouthing the things that it comes across when normal eating. The blood vessels don't extend to the mouth and lip areas and these areas don't even bleed when lacerated.

 

Fish can taste and/or smell exeptionally well they can also hear noise and detect vibration extremely well.

When a fish is alarmed by either a strange noise or taste or by being hooked it will react rather through survival instincts rather than anything else.

 

So called scientific experiments trying to prove that fish feel pain:

There are often so called scientists who cite experiments that are supposed to prove that fish feel pain but on reading about the experiments performed it is very obvious that the experiments prove inconclusive and that the experiments are done in a way that does not in any way prove what the author is trying to convey.

For example: recent experiments were cited where fishes lips were injected with a mild acidic solution, because the fish reacted badly it was claimed that fish must indeed feel pain.

Another example was when fish where exposed to mild electric shocks and likewise the so called scientist said that it showed that fish must feel pain.

Apart from the fact that I know no-one who plugs their tackle into the mains (Ouch sounds nasty) the experiments only proved that the fish could taste or react out of instinct to something which alarmed it.

 

Everyday examples of why we don't believe that fish feel pain in the same way as a warm bloodied animal:

I and many other anglers have experienced several examples which enforce our befief that the well respected scientists are right when they say that fish do not feel pain in the same excruciating way that a warm bloodied animal does.

For example a year ago I caught a 10oz Roach which had had its flesh ripped off from an inch in front of its tail backwards exposing bare bones; most probably caused by a fish eating bird or maybe by a Pike and it was still bleeding slightly and it was still eating as if nothing had happened. Would you go out for a meal if someone had just stripped the flesh from one of your legs???. I certainly wouldn’t be in the mood for having a snack would you?.

 

Why do fish always pull in the opposite direction to your rod after being hooked?

Surely if it felt pain it would sometimes move towards the pull to reduce pain like a warm bloodied animal usually does??

 

Why do fish sometimes repeatedly get hooked when feeding on bait over and over again even within minutes of being hooked previously?

 

The often repeated fallacy that fish will nearly always die after being caught is just that; a fallacy; records show that the same fish can be caught over and over for many years and now that we have catch and release in the UK the only time a fish will suffer after being caught is when it is handled badly on the bank or damaged badly during and after capture.or not recovered correctly before release.

 

So do fish feel Pain?? Ill leave you to make your own mind up.

Edited April 22, 2009 by BoldBear

[Ashikata]

Hi again, and thanks for the input, I used a little bit here and there more specifically during the questions rather moreso than the presentation itself, but it's always helpful and much appreciated.

 

It's nice to see the community I have long plugged as one of the friendlier sporting communities has not let me down here. I did post this thread elsewhere and recieved a very hostile response from several people, one of whom in particularly took a real shine to me

 

See what you think - http://www.totalcoarsefishing.com/cgi-bin/...=1240318062/0#0

[j_s]

Amazing amount of keyboard warriors in that thread, I can't stand cliquey people like that. Glad the interview went well.

[Sportsman]

Can I say that they are a bunch of P***** on that other forum or is that too personal?

[Newt]

Maybe the topic was just too difficult for most of them.

 

OTOH, the ones labeled as "God Member" should certainly have been able to offer a reasoned response.

[BoldBear]

Sounds like a lot of suspicious no-brainers on that forum, hope your interview went well.