Fish-killing Cruelty is Massive

For decades humans have pillaged the oceans like they clear cut the forests, and largely it has been hidden away from us, in a world we rarely ever see. Now is the time to do something to stop this atrocity. Read on and get active for the oceans and all the creatures who live there.

By-Catch
By-catch is a term used to describe non target species, fish, birds and mammals, caught in fish-killing nets and long lines, that are then discarded as waste products. Every year between 7 and 20 million tonnes of by-catch gets dumped back into the ocean dead or dying. The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimated that global by-catch was 20 million tonnes in 2002 - about 20% of all fish killed. The average trawling operation throws 80-90% of the sea animals it captures overboard. The least efficient operations actually throw more than 98% of captured sea animals back into the ocean, dead.

By-catch animals include birds, seals, whales, dolphins, turtles, sharks and fish. Whether crushed in nets, suffocated, drowned, strangled or gouged with hooks, these animals suffer excruciating pain until they die.

Long Lines
Long-lines are massive fish-killing lines with many hooks used to kill large fish in the open oceans. World-wide, long-lines set 1.4 billion hooks, with enough line to circle the globe over 550 times.

Long-lines can be set to hang near the surface (pelagic long-line) to catch fish such as tuna and swordfish or along the sea floor (demersal long-line) for ground fish such as halibut or cod. Albatrosses and other seabirds which readily feed on offal are attracted to the set bait, become hooked on the lines and drown. Around 100,000 albatrosses per year are killed by long-lines.

Gill Nets
Gill nets are fine fish-killing nets suspended in the oceans and are literally “walls of death” that kill indiscrimantly. They are invisible to sea animals who become tangled then drown, or die slowly die from the trauma, or from wounds that become infected from the net slicing into their delicate skin. Until there is a ban on gill nets in Tasmania's coastal waters sea-birds, including little penguins, will continue to drown and their populations will continue to decline. Recreational gill nets are already banned in Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and New South Wales.
Gill nets are used commercially in southern Australia to catch small sharks (gummy sharks, school sharks (a threatened species), sawfish and elephant fish). The vast majority of this shark flesh ends up as “flake” in the Melbourne market. As well as the obvious direct effect on the target shark species, sea lions are drowned in significant numbers in this fishery. A government report estimated 374 Australian Sea Lions are killed each breeding cycle (17.5 months) in the fish-killing zone (“fishery”).

Deep and Mid Sea Trawl fish-killing
With nets the size of football fields trawl fish-killing (“trawling”) can remove over 90% of life on the sea-floor, reducing large hundred-year-old corals to rubble. This is of particular concern for deep-sea habitats such as the small sea-mounts south of Tasmania. These are highly unique and diverse, with 262 species of invertebrates compared with 598 species reported from sea-mounts worldwide, and have slow growing, long-lived, easily depleted and difficult to restore, species. Factory trawl fish-killers are literally vacuuming the oceans clean of sea life at an alarming pace.

Fish Farming (Aquaculture)
Fish farming is simply mass incarceration and exploitation of fish species to satisfy human greed. In Tasmania, the farming of carnivorous species means that at least 5kg of wild caught fish is needed to produce 1kg of farmed fish.
There has been a huge shift to aquaculture in recent years — from less than one million tonnes in the early 1950’s to 51.7 million tonnes in 2006. Fish farms can cause intensive localised pollution through excrement and unconsumed food introducing antibiotics, nutrients, and anti-fouling chemicals to the environment. These can degrade natural habitat beneath and near the farms, as well as increasing populations of scavenging fauna and decreasing biodiversity. Because many thousands of fish survive in relatively small areas, disease is prevalent and can be transferred to wild populations if fish escape. There are also concerns about the impact of antibiotics on the environment and on human health after eating fish with antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Refer to Factory Fish Farming page for more detailed information

Recreational Fish-killing
Recreational fish-killing is having an increasing impact on a number of fish and invertebrate species due to the huge number of fish-killers and their increased effectiveness in catching fish. This is due to improved technology such as better tackle and fish finding devices as well as a proliferation of information in the media on where and how to kill fish. Some favourite “recreational” fish species in Australia are killed to such an extent that recreational killing exceeds commercial killing and threatens local fish populations.

Approximately 30-50% of all fish hooked are discarded during recreational fishing because they are an undesirable species or are under-size - the chances of survival for these animals are greatly reduced due to the trauma and pain of being hooked or trapped in a net and then ripped into an unknown atmosphere where they cannot breathe.
Catch-and-release is perhaps the latest fad among fish-killers, though these people would have themselves believe they are not killing if the fish are returned to the water alive. The problem is that many fish caught on hooks suffer fatal injuries from being hooked, and the added trauma of being dragged out of the water and handled causes many more fish to die. Studies have shown that a large percentage of fish die after being “released”.

“Fishing” Hurts Fish
You reach for a tasty apple hanging on a tree when suddenly your hand gets snagged by a sharp hook. Your whole body weight is dragged by that hook through your hand, into an atmosphere in which you cannot breathe. This is what fish, with their sensitive pain receptors, experience when they hooked for "sport". But it is not just the hooks that cause this immense suffering, millions of fish also suffer immensely in nets and on long lines.
Fish are intelligent individuals who feel pain in the same way that humans and other animals do. Fish learn by watching other fish, recognise each other, remember one another, and exhibit behaviours comparable to those of primates.

On the brink of extinction
Around 90% of the world’s large predatory fish are gone, hunted to extinction by greedy humans. Some sensitive species such as sharks, that are slow-growing and late to reproduce, are close to extinction. Of the 21 Albatross species recognised, 19 are threatened, and the other two are near threatened. Two species are critically endangered. Hundreds of other marine species are on the endangered and threatened list, including Dugongs, Australian Sea Lions, Snub Fin Dolphins, Logger Head Turtles and many species of penguins.

Throwing Oceans Ecosystems Out of Balance
Because the “most valuable” species (in human economic terms) are generally the larger fish such as tuna, shark and salmon, these populations have generally been killed almost to the point of extinction first, and smaller pelagic fish are now being targeted, with seven of the world’s ten biggest fish-killing areas focused on small prey species. Known as "fishing down the food chain" this is now creating two serious impacts — starving larger animals and fish of their prey, making their recovery even more difficult, and changing the ecosystem balance by giving lower level competitors an advantage.

No Chance to Recover
With fish-killing allowed in 99% of the ocean and the incredible technology and number of boats available to the global fish-killing fleet, there is almost nowhere that fish-killers cannot access. This means that there are virtually no natural refuges left in which fish or marine mammals can breed and replenish.

The End of the Line
Killing fish nearly to the point of extinction (”over fishing”) was recognised as one of the world's greatest and most immediate environmental problems in 2002, when it was first demonstrated that global killing of wild fish had peaked around 1989 and has since declined. Scientists predict that if killing of fish continues as it does now, most sea creatures caught to be eaten will be gone by 2048.

What we can do about it
The problem is big, but we can all play our part, and each and every one of us can make a huge difference. Stop eating fish and they can stay in the rivers and oceans, as simple as that. For the sake of the animals, and for the sake of our rivers and oceans, ditch fish off your plate, before it is too late. Take a look at Go Vegan for everything you need to know about living a healthy and cruelty free life. The cruelty to marine animals and destruction of entire ecosystems is so substantial and so extensive that we need to act now.

References
http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/oceans/bycatch/
http://www.amcs.org.au/WhatWeDo.asp?active_page_id=661
http://endoftheline.com/film
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longline_fishing
PUSHED TO THE LIMIT - Rebecca Hubbard - Ocean Planet