Al Capone and fishing

What has Al Capone and fishing in common?

Well, superficially and at a first glance very little, and I myself am not sure if I draw a long bow here. But frankly I wanted to get your attention. Now that I have it, please read on and let me put my case.

In Chapter 9 of my book ‘The Trout Whisperer’ I talked about the virtues of joining fishing clubs and promoted amongst other worthy things, the need for political clout, because we need it. I forewarned that the future of our sport is at risk from the worldwide Animal Liberation Lobby, better known as PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

According to their website http://www.animal-lib.org.au/docs/who.shtml, PETA’s aims are amongst other things:

Aims

• To change the laws concerning animals

• To outlaw factory farming

• To ban circuses with animals and to ban rodeos

• To stop the fur trade

• To ban recreational hunting

• To end animal experimentation

• To stop the testing of drugs and products on animals

• To foster the rights of animals

• To encourage vegetarianism and change the indifference that many people feel towards animals

• To ban the slaughter and exploitation of native and non-native wild animals

All noble causes as most of us agree, until you read the ‘fine print’.

Never underestimate your enemy! Is good advice, which, when ignored will catch you up the proverbial creek, without a paddle, with your waders down, when you least expect it and when you are literally at your most vulnerable.

You are forgiven to think that we are dealing with a bunch of old ladies whose life ambition is to win a high speed knitting competition, far from the truth. We are dealing with a radical organisation, which include in their membership scientists, lawyers, judges, financiers, engineers, vegetarians, politicians, civil servants and many God fearing folks.

We are dealing with the very people who opposed the century old tradition of fox hunting in Britton - and succeeded.

Who opposed the docking dog tails, and succeeded.

Who oppose Duck hunting in this country and will be successful (given a couple more state or federal elections during which they badger our politicians and intensify political pressure).

Who launch campaigns in the USA and Japan and threaten to boycott fashion houses, if they continue to use Australian wool in their garments, if Australia doesn’t outlaw mulesing of sheep. And they’ll not only have the Australian wool industry on the run, my guess is that they will succeed.

Go to http://www.animal-lib.org.au/lists/mulesing/mules.shtml

You think I’m kidding? Read these statements from their website: click here  and here

What YOU Can Do

• Choose ways of relaxing and enjoying the outdoors that do not cause suffering to animals.

• If people you know won't give up fishing, at least try to convince them to kill fish as soon as they are pulled from the water, rather than removing hooks while they are still alive and letting them suffocate.

• In NSW, fish come under the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act (POCTA). Write to the Minister for Agriculture and say how barbaric you consider gaffing, live baiting and big game fishing to be. Say you want them banned as cruel under the provisions of POCTA.

Did you get that last bit?

 …Write to the minister … Say you want them banned as cruel under the provisions of POCTA.

Now let me put my cards on the table.

I am totally against mulesing; anybody who wants to mules sheep should put his/her own groin on the table first and experience what it feels like. I am totally against factory farming, be it for hens, pigs or humans. I am against 1080 poisoning, the live sheep trade, the fur trade and animal experimentation and a whole host of other stupid, cruel and totally outrageous manias which individuals or the big corporations come up with, to improve their shareholders profit.

People who use Rhino horn powder for their itchy crouch to improve fertility appal me, or wear tiger fur coats to make their tits look bigger or acquire bear claws to make their mother in law look younger or for that matter men who mount a Grisly bear head over their mantelpiece to prop up their ego. I am sickened by people who kill thousands of sharks for their fins. I am appalled by any race, religion or nationality, which uses animal parts as an aphrodisiac, to make them root faster, more often or upside down or whatever stupid reason they come up with.

Because if it wasn’t for those aphrodisiac maniacs, or those floozies who want to show off their fur coat, there would be no market for these items. If there is no market, there is no poacher and if there is no poacher, there is no threat to the animal’s very existence. (Forget for the moment the destruction of native habitat and its devastating causes)

I easily could be an animal liberationist if I see the cruelty humans perform on animals, see below. The human race has never ceased to disappoint me and I am all in favour for animal protection, especially the protection of their habitat.

In my book and on this website I make no bones about the fact, that I do not practice C&R (Catch and Release) unless the fish is undersize and has to be released by law. I catch I eat! Eating fish is healthy food and if you are one of the people who don’t like fish, give them to your friends or neighbours and soon they will offer you veggies or eggs or whatever. Although I happen to think that C&R is cruel to the animal, and in my book I have given my reasons, this is NOT a campaign against C&R, it is a wake-up call, that C&R be it for big game fish or trout, is in the cross hair of a very powerful lobby.

Where is all that going, well, PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has fishing per se in their cross hair, not convinced?

If you go to their website:

http://www.animal-lib.org.au/lists/fish/fish.shtml#anchor698511

You find amongst others, this statement:

‘Since fish have the same nerve endings, the same chemicals for transmitting and blocking pain, and the same receptor sites for anxiety-reducing chemicals as mammals, it is absolute nonsense to suggest that fish do not feel pain or fear.’

Well, the jury is still out on that one. There are enough eminent scientists who dispute that statement and maintain that fish are a primitive life form and have not develop a sophisticated nervous system at all and are unable to recognise pain in the way mammals do. 

Go to http://www.cotrout.org/do_fish_feel_pain.htm and read a contrasting view.

Be this as it may, I am not qualified to judge the facts and findings, my proposal would simply be to err on the side of ‘the duty of care’ and kill fish immediately and ‘humanely’.

You might think ‘they’ll never get away with banning fishing’. Remember these words: anglers are living under the false illusion if they believe their sport will never be banned because it is so popular… and read on.

You see, that is like saying: ‘they’ll never get Al Capone’, they got him all right, not for murder, but for tax fraud, but they got him never the less and who really cares as long as he was behind bars.

They don’t need to ban fishing, that’s like hitting a weed with a sledgehammer and they don’t intend doing that because that causes a riot amongst the fisher folk. (Remember the fox hunt demonstrations in Britton) They’re much smarter than that, they spray the weed with weedkiller and that will get a time bomb ticking without the demonstrations.

All they need to do is ‘get you for breach of duty of care’.  Most of us think ‘ah well that applies only to dogs, cats and horses’ WRONG, the cards are on the table extending this to fish is no longer a hidden agenda; it is a fact for all to read (see their website).

You see, there is a back door open for PETA, just as there was a back door open with Al Capone, if you can’t get them for murder, get them for tax evasion.

Deciphering that means if they can’t get legislation through to stop fishing, they rephrase it and call it a “breach of duty of care" That’s sounds even more benign than cruelty to animals

They don’t even try to outlaw fishing, they find the Achilles heal everyone can associate with, cruelty to animals – and a 'duty of care' and you have the silent majority led like sheep to the slaughter so to speak by a radical but active minority.

Still not convinced? I’ll bet you my best fishing rod, anybody who publicly declares to ban rodeos, isn’t going to stop at C&R. And isn’t C&R the aquatic equivalent of rodeos? And I wish to think that the rodeo bull is in better shape at the end of the 15-second bout than that delicate trout is after it’s being hauled in and released.

Most fly fishers are nice, gullible people who might think of their sport as a noble art, a tradition celebrated over two thousand years and illustrated by romance, poetry and song and the trout is portrayed as a noble challenge, too precious to kill.

But lets be frank, with stocking programs as they are, there is no need for C&R. Trout is not a endangered specie, nor is it a scarce resource, not even a native fish, which puts it even under more pressure from a different lobby group altogether, which wants to eradicate all none native animals from this country (I wounder how they go with eradicating sheep and cattle?).

A bit like fox hunting actually, hundreds of years tradition, celebrated in song and paintings, kept many thousands of people in employment from the bugle blower to horsemen, farriers, dog breeders, saddle makers, horse trailer manufacturers to social gatherings, usually to raise much needed money for charities.

And really, if you think about it, foxhunting causes less environmental damage than a formula 1 race. At the end of the hunt was usually one dead fox, but hey, he could have been hit by a car the next night anyway and died after a long illness, leaving an attractive red head vixen behind which is now a single mum with four kids

So whom are we dealing with? We’re dealing with PETA  (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). A worldwide organisation, embracing people who do not care if a $100mill wool industry goes to pot. Do you think they’ll stop for a lousy $10mill fishing tackle industry? They advocate civil disobedience on their website, do you remember the thousands of demonstrators in the mêlée against the British fox hunt and the money that costs just in police overtime?

Go to http://www.animal-lib.org.au/lists/nonviolent/nonviolent.shtml

And read how they justify civil disobedience ‘as a powerful and relevant force for Eco-animal liberationists.’

Here is a website for you to check and see for yourself what radical elements are at work in PETA and what methods they are willing to use to get their way.

http://www.consumerfreedom.com/news_detail.cfm/headline/2537

Still not convinced?

Well I’ll try harder. Read the close shave the English fishing fraternity survived - just.

Midlands fishery owner warns of 'Duty of Care' time bomb

By Peter Cliff

  Angling as we know it could change forever if a tiny minority start a legal challenge against the sport using something called secondary legislation, the owner of a leading Midlands fishery has warned.

Secondary legislation covers laws introduced to solve one problem but which inadvertently engulf other situations for which they were not originally intended.

Speaking at the Annual Conference of the Association of Stillwater Game Fishery Managers at Packington Hall, Tim Small (right), owner of the Lechlade and Bushyleaze Trout Fisheries in Lechlade, Gloucestershire, said that anglers are living under the false illusion if they believe their sport will never be banned because it is so popular.

He warned that secondary legislation could be used to curtail the sport – as nearly happened with the recent introduction of the Animal Welfare Bill. The Bill could inadvertently have covered angling and given antis legal grounds to take action against the sport.

Addressing some 60 stillwater trout fishery owners from throughout England, Tim Small told the ASGFM Conference: "I don’t know how many of you realised how desperately close we came to the end with the re drafting of the Animal Welfare Bill last year. It was incredibly close," said Tim.

The Bill, he said, would have imposed a 'duty of care' on animals... which for the most part would have encompassed fish.

"As fishery owners, we would have had a duty of care to our fish which would have covered freedom from pain and fear, and freedom from disease. Just putting a fish into a lake that had argulus in it could have been construed as a welfare offence," he explained.

"However, putting fish into a lake knowing that some fisherman was going to pull it through the water could also have been made an offence and even an angler, the second he had caught that fish, would also have had a duty of care towards that fish."

And he warned: "Don’t be fooled for one second, Secondary Legislation could be the downfall of many. I am certain that if hunting with hounds had not been banned, then some smart Alec would have had a field day taking the hunts to court for a breach of the duty of care."

He added: "So, what’s next? In the same breath we mutter 'shooting' we also mutter the word 'fishing' - but add that it will never happen. We justify our belief that too many people enjoy fishing and argue that hunting was about the people rather than the fox.

"However, it only needs a tiny minority to start a challenge using secondary legislation and the whole of angling could collapse like a pack of cards."

  Dr Bruno Broughton (left), Technical Director of the Angling Trades Association and a Director of the recently formed umbrella group the Fisheries and Angling Conservation Trust (FACT), said the Animal Welfare Bill had indeed been a potential threat to angling. But, he said, the sport's national bodies had responded "speedily, decisively and forcibly" to ensure angling and its practices were not "inadvertently scooped up by the provisions of the Bill".

“Following our interventions, backed by face-to-face meetings and the presentation of evidence to the House of Commons Animal Welfare Select Committee, we now have written and verbal assurances from the Government and from Fisheries Minister Ben Bradshaw that angling and its practices will not be covered in the Animal Welfare Bill. Clearly, there will be opportunities to amend the proposed provisions when the Bill goes before Parliament and through its various Committee stages, but anglers can be assured that the ATA and members of FACT will be closely monitoring this process.”

He said that FACT was now building on the working relationship that the sport had developed with the Government, which is evidenced by regular angling summits with Government ministers.

"As a result, we are now in a good position to monitor any impending threats to the sport and take timely and appropriate action. The formation of FACT means we will be able to receive early warning of future legislation in the drafting stage and intervene where necessary to protect the interests of angling and anglers. This is a far more effective approach than either the 'they’ll never touch us' attitude or the abject panic noticeable in some quarters at the very mention of anti-angling," said Dr Broughton.

"However, this does not mean that fish welfare issues should be ignored. All good anglers and fishery owners want to ensure the well-being of the fish they catch and manage," he added.

End

I suggest you read Peter Cliff’s paper again and maybe again and ask yourself, is our sport safe now, is it business as usual? Not the way I see it. Going by the last paragraph in Peters article all that was achieved was … a good position to monitor any impending threats to the sport and take timely and appropriate action… [and] …means we will be able to receive early warning of future legislation in the drafting stage…

Nobody spoke of a victory of the 'they’ll never touch us' attitude.

Never underestimate your enemy I said earlier!

PETA will never give up, because politicians will come and go. A small setback is merely a blip in their pursuit of animal rights. Come election time, while we, the silent majority, sit on our collective arses and go fishing, THEY actively threaten, badger and browbeat our politicians or even put candidates up with their own agenda.

Which pollie has the guts to stand up for sense and sensibility when in his/her marginal seat they depend on less than 10 votes to remain sitting on their ‘golden egg’?

Still think I’m kidding?

It is important for all of us to understand that this has gone far beyond saving the Manchurian Tiger, the ‘Gorilla in the Mist’, the artic seal, or the ” Land rights for Gay Whales”.

As you might have heard on the news recently, PETA succeeded in Rome/Italy to ban the use of round gold fish tanks (apparently fish go blind in them) and badgered the northern city of Turin to pass a law to fine pet owners up to 500 euro ($A821) if they do not walk their dogs at least three times a week.

 http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story/0,20281,17040606-5001027,00.html

This has gone way past dog tail docking, fox hunting and rodeos. It has gone from the sublime to the ridiculous.

And here is silly me, and I think YOU to, thinking this is all about issues like this:

Go to http://www.bonsaikitten.com/bkgallery.html

Yes you read that right in the address. Bonsai Cats, the most bizarre cruelty to an animal one can imagine.

 A man in New York breeds and sells kittens that are called BONSAI CATS. That would sound cute if they weren't kittens, only days old, they were squeezed into tiny bottles after being given a tranquilliser, then kept there for the rest of their lives so they can be put on a mantelpiece to be poked and laughed at.
The cats are fed through a straw and their faces struggle to reach up the neck of the bottle where there's a tiny airhole. They are treated like absolute shit. The skeleton of the kitten will take on the form of the bottle as the kitten grows. The cats never get the opportunity to move, apart from the first few days they are alive with their mother. These 'ornaments' are sold cheaply and used as souvenirs.
They are the latest trends in New York, China, Indonesia and New Zealand.

I would like to quote just two of the many e-mails I received:

Helmut,

Re e-mail - respect for animals, that is the most disgraceful and cruel thing I have ever heard of, made me feel sick to the heart, It is beyond my thinking that anybody could ever do such a wicked thing.   I'm afraid there is no hope for the human species.... Chris

-------------------

Hi Helmut,

This is unbelievable that any person could be so cruel to animals as to carry out what is shown on this e-mail, they should be jailed for life, it could only happen in the USA, have a look and add your name to the list please.

Cheers,

Ray & Yvonne N.

Putting a goldfish in a round bowl seems to me not even on the same page.

My plea is:  BE alert and BE alarmed make sure that your member of parliament knows how you feel about fishing before he/she puts his/her name to any new law. Have his/her telephone number and email address firmly embedded on your fridge door.

Don’t know them?

Go to http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/senators/email.htm

http://www.aph.gov.au/house/members/download/PartyRepsHTML.htm

Tell your fishing mates about this campfire chat, join a fishing club and exercise your voting power. 

Tasmania issued 25 000 fishing licenses in 2005, that is political clout. If properly organised and brought to bear, it will get the attention of our state and federal parliamentarians. Because 25 000 people have family and friends, which can increase that number easily to 50 000.

And remember:

I wish you Tight Lines

If you would like to contact me for comments or contributions click here: thetroutwhisperer@bigpond.com