Fishing has been a part time activity for many families, some ranging several generations. The idea of bringing your family out on the water for a day full of relaxing, fishing, and being together has been a tradition for many families. When I think about fishing for sport, I remember a time when my father and I were on a sailboat on a Saturday morning. This fish was not edible but it looked pretty and so we took the hook and line off the fish and watched it squirm around the boat deck until we threw it back into the water. This experience from a young age has left me with an unsettling feeling of what if we had decided to kill this fish and keep it simply because it looked nice. Well, this happens with millions of fish yearly – from bass to sailfish. There are many environmental consequences when someone decides they want to go fish. According to the NOAA around 12 million Americans go fishing for sport annually, and while most Americans are against hunting for sport far less have the same concern about fishing for sport. We can wonder why this is. Is it because we do not view fish in the same light as animals? Or is it because we believe that fish are much more plentiful than other animals? I believe it is because one person does not think they have an environmental impact with their one fishing line. But when there are millions of fishing lines in the ocean at once it is a significantly more damaging to the environment. In fact, according to Jessica Meeuwig, Professor at the University of Western Australia, previous research has shown there are a lot more professional anglers than there are commercial fishing vessels – 220 million people fish for fun every year around the world. For some specific species, commercial fishermen are retrieving less fish than fisherman who are on their boats fishing all day. When we look at the act of fishing as a whole, its methods are not sustainable. In “The Role of Recreational Fishing in Global Fish Crisis”, recreational fishing has its biggest impact on marine debris, overfishing, and fish mortality. The boat is a danger to nearby ecosystems by releasing motor oil; fishing gear goes missing on trips and leads to debris and trash in our oceans, and finally the act of fishing and killing an animal so it can be stuffed and hung on a wall threatens the population of the species.

There is no argument the experience of fishing takes time, patience, and money. It is a sport and therefore people do view it as one. We, as a society, have created the idea that killing sentient beings and keeping them stuffed on a wall as a trophy is socially acceptable. Equally disturbing is catching and releasing fishing which can lead to permanent damage to the fish such as leaving gas bubbles in their system that will eventually kill them, even though the fisher did not intentionally kill the fish. Catching trophy fish or fish that are deemed “rarer” to catch can lead to population decreases, potentially threating its existence. In recent years many states, all except Hawaii, have instated some form of fishing license requirement that fishers have to obtain before they fish to further protect the fish and manage conservation. While fishing licenses seem like a good idea, there are still too many people fishing annually to maintain sustainability of the ocean’s ecosystem. If you fish, fish to eat; not for sport.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCaKxxr5em0