PETA's New Anti-Fishing Campaign

I was checking my e-mail this afternoon and on the right-hand side in the sponsored links section (I have a G-mail account) I saw a link that said, Fishing Hurts - If you wouldn't impale a dog in the mouth, why do it to a fish?

It has been a while since PETA has gone after the angling community, but they are at it again (and putting links right in my 'in-box' without actually SPAMing me.....clever anti's) with their new fishinghurts.com website and billboards. Normally, I would add a link to my blog directly to the site, but I don't want to give this site any "authority", so if you want to see it you'll have to go directly to it.

The entire campaign is relatively benign - just another emotionally charged PETA ideal that states hooking a fish is the same as hooking a child or a dog and that catch and release fishing kills fish. I have some sour news for PETA: I have already caught and released the same fish three times this year. I know it is the same fish since it has a big slash on its side - probably from an Osprey.

Surprisingly, they don't go after fishing tournaments. They do say that a "2006 study conducted during and after a Wisconsin fishing tournament found that hundreds of fish who were caught and released had died within a few days", but that is the extent of it. Probably because the tournament trails keep records of fish mortality. Last year I fished five BFL tournaments. Now admittedly I don't remember the exact number of fish that we weighed during the season. I do remember, however, that our mortality rate was less than 5%.

Anyway, like all PETA campaigns, this one carries about as much clout as wet dish rag and will soon fade away, but in the meantime, here are a few things you can do to decrease the presence of this campaign on-line:

1. Don't click out on banner ads or sponsored links - although they ultimately have to pay for each click, it adds "authority" to their page in search engines.



2. Don't place links in blogs or anywhere else when you are discussing this campaign - again, click-outs from links add "authority" and move them up the search engine pages.

I am sure posting this around the internet only helps their cause, but I think it is important to let anglers know what the anti's are up to. Remember the old saying...Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.