Inconsistent Wildlife Rules

From what I have seen in England, nobody likes foxes!  They defecate in public areas and upset rubbish containers looking for food – they are described as dirty and horrible by people I know.

Remember the hue and cry from animal rights activists whenever a member of the Royal Family went fox hunting?

Yes, some foxes ended up being pulled apart by a pack of dogs.

Japanese hunters of minke whales in the Southern Ocean have been roundly criticised by New Zealand, Australia and others, and they forced a temporary ban, but ‘for research purposes’ Japan is intends to restart whaling operations. Funny how research meat can be found on expensive restaurant tables.

Dolphin drives are carried out by Japan, Peru, Solomon Islands and Faroe Island. The practice is in the same category as infant seal bashing.

There is now a ban on shark finning in New Zealand waters because shark numbers of all species are declining rapidly worldwide.

Like many New Zealanders I have done my share of hunting and fishing, some as part of my job and some for recreation and food gathering. For both recreation and food gathering, the norm was to take only enough for my immediate needs.

Since I have had my fill of hunting and fishing, it may seem a bit of the ‘holier than thou’ syndrome to criticise, but actually, I’m not backing away.

At primary school we were shown a movie of big game marlin fishing where a hook was inserted into a live bait-fish which was then sent off into the deep for a marlin to latch onto. The fisherman was strapped into a seat and the reel had water poured over it to cool while the fish was dragged in by its mouth then gaffed and hung up as a trophy to be photographed with the gallant fish-hauler.

As a youngster, I was a bit horrified by what I had witnessed, but I never heard an expression of sorrow form anyone on behalf of those magnificent creatures.

Perhaps it was because I saw three defining movies: the first two were by Walt Disney. The Living Desert and The Vanishing Prairie; the other was The Silent World by Jacques Cousteau. Sir David Attenborough’s documentaries continue to inspire me to this day.

There is some guy who trots around the globe to catch legendary big (monster) fish and flicking through the channels waiting for the news, here he was with a sturgeon! My Mum was never wrong and she explained to me, ‘the sturgeon in Britain is a Royal fish and if you caught one, it had to be offered to the King or Queen’.

Apparently the guy was not in Britain but he was saying that sturgeon no longer grew to their huge size because of their eggs – caviar, taken from killed fish. I think he let this one go free, then he found a small baby one in the bottom of the boat. He sat it on his finger and chatted about it, in the fish’s terms, for an eternity! I didn’t see him release it but he probably did, but couldn’t he have taken a still picture and released it sooner?  

There are a number of fishing programmes where large fish are dragged up to a boat, sometimes released, other times not. These are animals that have survived the perils of the deep for a long time and have majesty. They get a hook in their mouth (some must go into the gut) and they are dragged until they are exhausted. Not much different to the hunted fox really.

There is an advertisement about a motorised raft that takes out about twenty baited hooks and after the tide changes, winds back in with dead, drowned fish. I couldn’t think of the name of the thing, so looked at the internet but instead found this guy fishing for paddle fish. He drags them out of the water after a big fight – the fish is exhausted – he is videoed with it, puffing because of his effort, then sets it free – it had barely had enough energy to swim off. Vulnerable to predators.

If I chased a sheep in my paddock for an hour, then held it under water in the river for five minutes, I would rightly end up before the courts for animal cruelty.

It seems ok to drag a fish out of its environment, as long as the environmentally sustainable thing is done by letting it go – eh?

So then, fox hunting is illegal, whaling is sort of illegal, shark finning is sort of illegal, dolphin driving is frowned upon, cock fighting is illegal, dog fighting is illegal, bear baiting is illegal. How then do we justify yanking big fish out of the water?