Activists Try To Reel In Sport Fishing

Anglers on both sides of the Atlantic are concerned about animal-rights activists zeroing in on sport fishing.

In Amsterdam, Ed Kowski runs an Old World fishing shop filled with inexpensive tackle and bait and plenty of free advice. Ed just turned 60 and he says that he’s looking forward to the day he can retire. But there’s a hangup.

“No one will buy it,” he says. “The future of fishing is too uncertain.”

Beginning next year, anglers in The Netherlands will be prohibited from using live bait to catch fish. They have been using maggots to catch a variety of small fish and minnows for catching pike.

Animal-rights activists in Holland’s Green Party have persuaded Dutch officials that it’s cruel to impale maggots and shiners on hooks. If the baits must be used, the Greens argue, then the worms and minnows should be killed humanely before they are put on a hook.

In Germany, the Green Party has put an end to catch-and-release fishing. German law now requires anglers to kill a fish as soon as it is landed.

The country’s animal-rights activists convinced legislators that it was cruel to hook fish and to subject the animals to the stress of a fight for the sake of sport.

In England, animal-rights activists have been disrupting fishing matches in which anglers keep their catches in large, submerged nets until the weigh-in, when the fish are released.

“Fish have feelings, too,” say activists from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, an American group.

In Washington, D.C., this spring, PETA brought its cartoon character, Gill the fish, to disrupt a fishing day for inner-city children in an urban park.

The event was co-sponsored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the American Sportfishing Association.

“There’s no question that we’ve got an animal-rights-activist threat,” said Jason Sauey, soon to become chairman of the ASA.

President of Flambeau Products, an Ohio company that manufacturers fishing-tackle boxes and waterfowl-hunting decoys, Sauey said animal-rights activists “will use any means to justify their end. They do not have a lot of integrity in my opinion, and they are not very high-minded about the actions they’ll take in the pursuit of their agenda.

“In the past they’ve been more focused on hunting and hunting-related activities, but it’s very obvious now that they are turning their attention to fishing.