Does angling damage fish stocks?
Thanks to the film, the book and ensuing tuna swear-off by sandwich outlets, we know we’re teetering near the End of the Line in terms of commercial fish stocks. But fishing for fun is still presented as a rather noble pursuit. Perhaps anglers shouldn’t be let off the hook so easily. While one lone fisherman can’t harvest the tonnage of a crazy commercial o fleet, some 3% of the population purport to be recreational anglers, and the decline of the River Wye’s stocks shows that anglers are indeed culprits of overfishing. Catch and release must be the order of the day, and the Wye, for example, now aims for a 100% release rate in order to boost migration. This spring once again saw very low numbers of salmon migrating up Welsh rivers, and the Environment Agency has a disappointingly long and countrywide list of salmon rivers it says will be at risk by 2013. Meanwhile, recreational fishing has become linked with the arrival of invasive species, both fish and plants. Lakes in southern Irel
