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FISHING |
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Lot’s of
people go fishing to relax and enjoy themselves. They believe that fish are
“cold-blooded” animals and therefore do not feel pain, but that’s not
true.
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Fish have
a nervous system, the same as other animals, which are the parts of the
body that send messages to the brain telling the fish that something is
hurting and it’s life is in danger.
Most
people fish with a fishing rod, which means that a hook, hidden inside
some bait on the end of a long fishing line, is cast into the water. The
fish eats the bait, thinking it has found some food, and the hook catches
inside it’s mouth and pulls him out of the
water.
As well as the terrible pain that the hook
causes ripping into the fishes mouth, he also suffocates as he is pulled
out of the water.
Even many people
who do care about animals are not compassionate about fish. Maybe it’s
because they are not cute and furry like kittens or dogs and they live
underwater, where many people don’t see them. But they are still living
animals that deserve to be treated with respect and should not be
hurt. |
| As well
as fishing for sport, many fish are also killed by professional fishermen
who catch them for food in restaurants and
shops.
Crustaceans are another form of sea life that are caught for
restaurants. They include crabs, lobsters and yabbies. Many of them live
in tiny tanks in restaurants, waiting for people to order them for a meal.
Some are even put into a boiling pot of water and boiled to
death. |
| What Can you do? |
1. |
You can refuse to eat fish
and choose vegetarian meals instead.
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2. |
If someone invites you to go fishing, say
you'd love to go out bush and look at the fish, but you don't want to kill
or harm the
animals. |
DIFFERENT FISHING METHODS:
| Trawling |
This is
one of the most common fishing methods in the world. A trawl is a big,
heavy net that is pulled along the sea bed by heavy boats. The nets pull
up all types of fish and other sea life from the bottom of the ocean and
many of them suffocate under all the weight. The fish and other creatures
that are not needed are thrown back into the water but they usually die
soon after anyway.
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| Finning |
This is a
new method of fishing where sharks are caught just for their fins. The
fins are sliced off to make shark fin soup for Chinese restaurants, and
the sharks are thrown back into the water still alive. They die soon after
because they are unable to swim or survive without their
fins.
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| Long
Line Fishing |
Thousands
of baited hooks are attached to long fishing lines stretching along behind
a boat. It is used over rocky areas where nets cannot be used as they
would be torn. This method also kills many sea birds as they try to feed
off the fish and then become tangled in the
lines.
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| Drift
Netting |
| This is
one of the worst methods of fishing in the world. A very large, strong,
nylon net forms a wall in the water, sometimes covering areas as big as 30
kilometres. The net is almost invisible in the water and fish and other
creatures swim into it and get caught. It is used mostly to catch tuna,
but lots of other sea life also get caught, including millions of
dolphins, small whales, seals and sharks. Another danger is that the nets
sometimes break free during storms and drift around killing more sea
animals. |
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