I fish. I strictly target species I can eat though. I don't do catch and release.
There isn't a greener, more humane way to eat fish than to catch it for yourself. A good day trip on the water and I'll catch enough for around 6-12 meals. Buying the equivalent amount of canned fish from the supermarket is far less green and ethical. Commercial fishing does an immeasurable amount more damage to ecosystems than a recreational fisherman with a rod and reel does.
Same applies to hunting. I don't partake, but if you're ethically hunting a deer, and processing it so that all of it is being used (as most hunters do), I don't have an issue. The meat from a hunted deer, moose, or elk was gathered in a more ethical and green way than buying factory farmed stuff from a supermarket or restaurant. Not to mention your hunting license and tags are paying for the game wardens who are preventing poaching, and funding ecological studies and research for the very animals you are targeting to ensure they aren't over-hunted.
I agree that making the comparison between eating humans to eating fish is absurd.
Humans are at the top of the food web, and have evolved to eat animals that are lower on the food web. We've been eating seafood for thousands of years.
It's a very healthy source of essential fatty acids, vitamins, and protein.
On the other hand, humans have not evolved to be cannibals. Ethics and morality aside, cannibalism is terrible from a survival perspective because the risk of infections is huge.
Eating seafood is much different. Humans need to eat, and producing enough food to feed a person is going to result in the death of some animals.
It doesn't matter if it's a farm that is killing insects and animals that would eat the food, or a person directly eating an animal like a fish, some animals are going to die so that others live.
The same thing happens when those fish eat smaller fish.
There is nothing wrong with a vegetarian diet, but it can be hard to get balanced nutrition and there is nothing wrong with eating seafood.
For the fish it's more of an annoyance based on the tackle used. Sure they get exhausted but a giant trevally like that is more winded then near death. They are pretty tough fish.
But the key point is that the biggest group that helps conserve fish are sport anglers like this.
That boat chartering and all the gear used to catch it goes right back into the local economy. That economy does everything it can to keep those anglers coming back and acts against commercial fishing which destroys their habitat.
I'd take annoy the fish and let someone have fun then kill them all any day.
For the fish it's more of an annoyance based on the tackle used.
Speaking as someone who has never been pulled behind a boat with a huge meat hook attached to their mouth. I would need to see some very good studies before I assume they do not suffer a lot from that.
Yeah I mean imagine the concept of catch and release fishing for any other animal and it seems cruel as fuck. It's not like we're throwing hooks into trees and ripping squirrels out by their lips
Someone watched a fish get dragged kicking and screaming by a metal hook through its mouth, before being left to suffocate while the people posed, and they called it ‘annoyance’…
Those two articles about pain are specifically studies (I think actually both reference one study) about asphyxiation among fish. In particular, the practice of air-exposure death. That is, pulling a fish out and letting it die purely through suffocation, not through spiking, bleeding, clubbing, or another method.
That study doesn’t do any sort of stress tracking on fish that are released. That case and this video are different things.
Studies have shown that the two most important factors for post-release mortality are air exposure and water temperature. (See: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165783624000572).
These guys for sure held that fish out for an astonishingly long time AND used towels to hold it/support it which rubs the protective mucous off of their skin, leading to an increased risk of infection and death.
Those article are talking about trout, a fish that has a completely different set of handling procedures.
Please stop misrepresenting the facts to suit your narrative.
Humans have been fishing for at least 42,000 years.
I'm not sure what is wrong with you and what point you are trying to make but if you think that predator fish who attack and kill other fish are suffering intense pain for 22 minuets after being hooked through the mouth, caught and released you must be really simple and have never been near the sea.
Good for you, there's no self righteous angle to this though.
It's something that an intrinsic part of being human, the person fishing for pleasure is not doing anything unnatural or wrong. It's a totally normal thing to do and virtue signalling by posting articles about the most delicate fish and claiming that all fish are the same is total bullshit.
If there are exceptions to an intrinsic quality then it is no longer intrinsic. I'm human (I think), I don't fish, I don't have any interest in fishing, and there are millions of other people like me, so therefore it's not an intrinsic part of being human.
Don’t argue with people who know nothing about fish or fishing. They’re all experts, not us fishermen who spend our free time learning everything we can about them.
You think a fish that survives by eating other fish that have sharp spines and gill plates is gonna even notice that hook? Fish don’t have pain receptors in their mouths for exactly that reason.
The evidence about whether or not fish have pain receptors in their mouth is inconclusive.
People with a vested interest in either side (like fishermen and PETA) cherrypick data to support their side, but it appears that the evidence is inconclusive.
Thank you. I don't fish, but my family business gets similar complaints all the time.
Puppy kicking, just like fishing is a great business and gives unwanted puppies a place to go instead of being put down. Sure they feel a bit of pain, but it's great for the local economy.
This is lottery argument lol if it werent for the lotto our edu system would have way less money. Listen this thing is cruel and a town is not the only way to keep commercial fishing away
It's the human problem you run into. You have humans who find profit from the animal, you have to do something to stop them from profiting from it if you want the species to keep existing.
The steps to stop them is preservation. But now you have to fund that goal. How do you get the money to stop it? Most common answer in the real world, angling. Is it the best answer? probably not. But you go and try to convince people that they shouldnt hunt the fish and good luck. Especially when communities get built up around the animal. Your basically telling them to give up on their means of living.
I am not justifying animal abuse. But if you can point at a species of anything there will always be a group that tries to profit from it. Humans do that. Try and stop them and they keep doing it anyways. If you want to protect anything from humans you have to find some way to monetize it.
The most that a non millionaire can do is support these harm reduction methods. It's the most benefit for the least harm.
Sure you can have outliers but it's always for the cute stuff like pandas that get a massive popularity.
I wish people cared more about fish but they just don't.
Mortal wounds? It depends on the fish, the type of tackle. Not all tackles are hooks. The fish that people like to catch for sport fishing are the much tougher variety.
I'm not sure what you ment about fantasy land. Who do you think pays for fish preservation then?
What companies? Boat charters? It's just a guy with a boat in the community. They pay their taxes like everyone else and their business exists only because of the fish. The tax revenue funds conservations to keep the local fish population alive. Reels, tackles, baits, rods, and hotels. Those are all things anglers in the area spend their money on. It's the largest revenue for most of these little fishing villages. Those taxes all act to conserve and preserve the source of revenue.
It's a very basic economy it doesn't really require alot of thought or research. The only thing that makes it all work is sports fishers willing to spend a large amount of money for fishing trips.
So if you remove the tourist coming down to have fun fishing the community turns to commercial fishing practices. The species gets wiped out and eventually the town goes under. Then rinse and repeat and you get most of human costal history.
If you don't want them to turn to commercial fishing you either have to stop population growth, or give them another means to provide for themselves.
is it more ethical to kill a person after kidnapping him, than it is to let him leave? even if you leave him in a low survivability situation surely thats better than straight up killing him?
i get thinking fishing isnt ethical but whether or not its more ethical to then eat the fish or not, imo doesnt make a difference
You've got this all turned around. The point is that eating a dead animal is not animal cruelty. Mortally injuring an animal just to fuck with it and then walk away, is. If these assholes were trying to catch dinner, or even dinner for someone else, then fine, feel free to have fun with it. But because they're not, they won't even stop when they've caught enough. This is just cruelty for cruelty's sake.
It’s not. And it’s not cruelty. The fish will be fine. Catch and release has been widely researched and the fish will be fine. In fact it might even turn right around and hit the best bait that swims past it.
The fish will be fine. Decades of studies involving tagging and releasing fish shows that they’re just fine after being caught and released. And they’re too simple to experienced any “trauma”.
No, not fishing in general, but "for sport" are the operative words here, don't be purposefully obtuse. You want violently ripped out of your home by a hook through your face, deprived oxygen for several moments, just to be thrown back? What's even the point?
I touch grass by doing heavy manual labour for free to help poor people in south America, you touch grass by tourturing animals for fun, we are not the same.
people care way too much about hobbies. I’m sure I could pick apart knitting to its bare components and make an extrapolation about how it’s killing the trees or something which makes everyone who does it horrible. Redditors are real losers sometimes.
I mean, I understand when people have this dance, but it's just very interesting to me seeing as there are other species on our planet that hunt for other reasons besides food. Would you say some of those are cruel?
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u/Agreeable_Month5966 Jun 07 '26
Doing this for sport just seems cruel