The World Peace Diet: Eating For Spiritual Health And Social Harmony

Hunting and Herding Sea Life / 105
In addition to all this commercial fishing, which has destroyed ninety
percent of the ocean’s large fish such as tuna and swordfish, there is
the toll taken by recreational and “sport” fishermen on both freshwater
and saltwater fish. 28 Recent research shows that anglers kill a far larger
percentage of threatened species than previously thought, causing, for
example, over twenty-five percent of the deaths of over-fished saltwater
species. Whether they kill the fish to eat or throw them back, the fish
suffer intensely. The whole intent of sport fishing is, as Barry MacKay
points out, “to engage in a battle between the fisher and the fish—a battle
never asked for by, or in the interest of, the fish.” 29 Studies have
shown that fish who are hooked and thrown back are so traumatized
that many die from the experience. The pain of being hooked in the
mouth is excruciating—Thomas Hopkins, professor of marine science
at the University of Alabama, has compared it to “dentistry without
Novocain, drilling into exposed nerves.” 30 This pain is compounded by
being pulled and “played” on the line, which for the fish is an agonizing
struggle leading to utter exhaustion. Being handled by the fisher
damages the protective mucus layer on the fish’s scales; then, after
inflicting more trauma removing the hook, the fisher tosses the wounded
fish back to “fight” again another day. The estimates of “catch and
release” fish mortality vary depending on a variety of factors, including
the species and age of the fish, the depth at which they’re caught, how
severely they’re hooked and how much they’re handled, and how
exhausted they are by their life-and-death struggle. In a study of Coho
salmon, twenty to thirty percent died from the ordeal; in other studies,
the percentages of catch-and-release fish that die shortly after being
returned to the water are between five and ten percent, and with others
it’s fifty percent and even up to one hundred percent. 31
Besides the suffering of the fish, there is also the extreme cruelty to
creatures used as bait in fishing, as Joan Dunayer explains:
Animals used as live bait range from shrimps, lizards, worms, and
frogs to mackerels, salmons, crickets, and crabs. “Baitfish” are
hooked so that they won’t die quickly: through their lips, their nose,
their eye sockets. . . . If large, they may be impaled on two or three