'Sports'fishing, becoming one with nature. Easy and relaxed staring at the water, catching a fish once in a while, put them in a special net with the rest, and when the day is over, you're going to release them as a good sportsman would do. Sounds good, but does it work this way? Most of the time you here people say that fish can not feel pain. But is this true?

Fish feel pain!

Several test have been done by scientists, concluding that fish indeed feel pain. When the fish is 'hooked', (where a steel fishing hook is pulled trough his lip with lot's of force) is causes a lot of pain and stress. Imaginine, the fish it's mouth and lips are his most sensitive parts. They use their mouths much as we use our fingers, to pick things up and feel them-and to collect food, build homes, and take care of their babies (when danger is near, some fish open their mouths to allow their babies to hide inside). In fact, fish's mouths are so exquisitely sensitive to stimuli, any pain they experience is especially acute. According to Dutch researcher John Verheijen and his co-workers, the pain resulting from injury by the hook contributes less to the fish's suffering than fear. This conclusion was reached following comparisons of the behaviour of the carp after being caught on a hook. Some of the hooked fish were held with a slack line, while others were held with the line pulled taut. In the experiments described in New Scientist, April 2, 1987, it was observed that those not held on a taut line ate again soon after release, but those subjected to line pressure avoided food for a considerable time afterwards. After being hooked, the fish darted, dived, spat and shook their heads as if trying to expel unwanted food. A few minutes after pressure was applied to the line, the carp began to display a type of behaviour called 'spitgas,' prolonged spitting of gas from the swim bladder, which resulted in their sinking when the line was finally slackened. Additional experiments used electrical currents to produce more precise pain stimuli; after several minutes of exposure, the carp began spitting gas and sinking. Stated Verheijen, 'The delay between the painful stimulation and the responses of spitgas and sinking indicated a series of ongoing biochemical and physiological processes associated with fear.'" More significant are the effects of desiccation and particularly of handling on the skin and gills. The outer surface of the fish does not consist of scales, as is commonly believed. Scales are located within the dermis, or middle layer of the skin. Superficial to them is the epidermis, with its mucus cover. The epidermis is a very delicate transparent tissue which provides the waterproofing, i.e., an essential part of the physiological control of the fluid balances between the fish and its environment. It is also the barrier between the fish and the wide variety of disease-producing micro-organisms found in water. Handling of fish, in a landing-net or by hand to remove hooks, will almost certainly involve damage to this delicate layer. Severe trauma is caused by holding a fish tightly in a dry cloth, which will remove the epidermis from considerable areas of the body.

Damage to other animals.

It's not only the fish who suffer from the large group of sports fisherman. Also the animal who live in and around the water, and also the enviroment are getting lot's of damage. Many of the water birds die each year because they got strangled in miles and miles of fishing line. Or they get injured because of fishing hooks or other fishing material they swallow. Because of this, they can not eat any more, and die a slow death of starvation.

Fish in the sea.

Factory trawlers are vacuuming the oceans clean of sea life at an alarming pace. Thirteen of the 17 major global fisheries are depleted or in serious decline. The other four are overexploited or fully exploited. Today’s commercial fishers use vast factory trawlers the size of football fields and advanced electronic equipment and satellite communications to track fish. (Large operations also use airplanes or helicopters!) Huge nets, sometimes miles long, stretch across the ocean, swallowing up everything and everyone, including turtles and terns. The worldwide yearly catch of all sea fish is between 60 and 80 million tonnes. There are around 20,000 species of fish, of which 9,000 are regularly caught, but only 22 species are taken in large amounts. Five groups of fish make up half the yearly catch: herrings, cod, jacks, redfish and mackerel.

One type of net is a purse seine, which is drawn up and closed like a duffle bag. Purse seining for yellowfin tuna has aroused public outrage in behalf of dolphins ensnared with the tuna swimming below them. But what about the tuna? While tuna may not have Flipper’s smile, they suffer, too. Underwater explosives, used to herd dolphins, cause terror and pain to the tuna as well, and the pressure waves from underwater detonation can burst a fish’s swimbladder. Trawlers drag enormous nets through the water, forcing all fish in their path into the closed end. For hours, the trapped fish are squeezed and bounced, together with any netted rocks and ocean debris. Prolonged tumbling and dragging in the net had caused the fish to rub against each other and file away their sharp scales,” author William Warner reported of a haul he observed. Their flanks, in fact, were scraped entirely raw. When hauled up from the deep, fish undergo excruciating decompression. Frequently, the intense internal pressure ruptures the swimbladder, pops out the eyes, and pushes the esophagus and stomach out through the mouth.

The slaughtering of billions of sea animals.

Smaller fish, such as flounder, are ordinarily dumped onto chopped ice: Most suffocate or are crushed to death by fish who follow. Larger fish, such as scrod and haddock, tumble onto the deck. Eyewitness William MacLeish described how the catch is sorted: The crew stabs the fish with short, spiked rods called pickers, “throwing cod here, haddock there, yellowtail there. Next, the fish's throats and bellies are slit. Meanwhile, non-target fish (“bycatch”), who sometimes comprise most of the catch, are thrown overboard, often by pitchfork.

On any given day, fishers may set out some 40,000 miles of gillnets, driftnets on the Pacific high seas, and anchored nets in coastal waters. Plastic, weighted gillnets hang like curtains, generally to a depth of 30 feet. Unable to see the netting, fish swim into it. Unless they are smaller than the mesh size, they get no further than poking their heads through. When they try to back out, the netting catches them by their gills or fins. Many of the fish suffocate; others struggle so desperately in the sharp mesh that they bleed to death. Because gillnets are left unmonitored, trapped fish can suffer for days. Some commercial fishers still harpoon large, valuable fish (such as swordfish, tuna, and sharks) or hook them individually. Large fish are caught by long-lining, in which a ship unreels as much as 30 miles of line bristling with hundreds of thousands of baited hooks.

And that’s not all! In the process of slaughtering billions of sea animals, trawlers also dump into the oceans:
450,000 plastic containers,
52 million pounds of plastic packing material,
and 298 million pounds of plastic fishing net.