THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

amusingly, I am perhaps one of the very few in history who actually did do FA for seven years, and still
came away with something to show for it.
A full copy of the thesis entitled Fluctuating Asymmetry As A measure Of Environmental Quality In
The Three Spined Stickleback Gasterosteus aculeatus [L] by Phillip Williams 2004, is available in the
archive of Liverpool University. It is also available online at Fishing Films and Facts.
A LESSON FROM HISTORY
At the bottom of the title page is a short adapted quote based on a genuine quote attributed to both
Rudyard Kipling and to Cecil Rhodes, my version of which reads 'To be born a fisherman is to win first
prize in the lottery of life'. This should read 'To be born an Englishman is to win first prize in the lottery
of life', both versions of which are true.
Taking my version one step further, let me also add that to be born a fisherman and to have been lucky
enough to have lived at a time of relative peace and prosperity after two world wars, as well as at a time
when there were still plenty of fish about to be caught, is like buying another lottery ticket and winning
the big one for a second consecutive time. How lucky then am I.
As an evolutionary biologist, I am
very well aware of how much we as
human beings owe to a whole range
of catastrophes and other lesser
calamities which have befallen our
planet and its numerous earlier
inhabitants over the millennia,
ultimately paving the way for our
appearance some 200,000 years ago.
So loss of species, even of whole
families of animals and plants, is a
natural part of how evolution works,
without which we wouldn't be here.
Most scientists are now happy to
accept this concept, both as a
mechanism and a necessary process
Over the millennia there will always be winners and losers
for advancement, which makes me
wonder why some then jump onto
the extreme conservation band wagon of wanting to save anything and everything from the process they
profess to embrace, locking life up as a frozen snap-shot in time, as if to deny the process they acclaim
the necessary tools to continue its as yet unfinished business. Human beings are not the ultimate product
of evolution. It's not so long ago that Homo heidelbergensis was in exactly the same position we are in
now. Where is he now??.
They (the tree-huggers) would argue, and with some justification, that much of what is currently driving
evolution or species destruction forward does not come from natural sources, and therefore needs to be
resisted.
Deforestation, the plunder of the seas, and global warming driven by ignorance and/or greed, hardly
fall within the natural order of things, despite the fact that some of these and other similar problems
have played their part in a variety of ways at many different times for more than four billion years.
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