I got invited to go fishing with some coworkers and had to say no. It's kind of a shame since I don't have any friends and it was a chance to do something social, plus the area they wanted to go is chill and out in the woods. But I've never been comfortable with fishing. It's a big part of where I grew up. Lots of people don't even eat the fish. They toss the poor things back in the water.

Maybe I could still go but just hang out on the shore.

  • coeliacmccarthy [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    3 years ago

    I don't think fishing on the whole is extraordinarily cruel. For human cruelty it's extremely ordinary.

    Letting fish slowly asphyxiate to death sucks though, it's true. However there are methods to quickly euthanize caught fish (see: Iki Jime).

    As far as catch-and-release goes, I actually don't think that's very cruel. With a few exceptions (like manta rays) fish brains are incredibly small and shitty and I do not believe that any psychological trauma a fish experiences from being hooked and released is comparable to that of humans or many other tetrapod vertebrates.