Across the U.S. each summer Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts take to lakes and streams to earn fishing related belt loops, pins, and merit badges. With the California Department of Fish and Game's new regulations on fisheries, a new problem emerges. Scouts will no longer be able to earn the fishing awards, much less experience the solacement of fishing.
To make matters worse, PETA is calling on the Boy Scouts of America to retire its "Fishing" and "Fish and Wildlife Management" merit badges.
In a 2001 letter from PETA's Dawn Carr addressed to the Boy Scouts of America president Milton Ward, Carr says:
Fishing is no longer considered a benign activity. It is hunting in the water, and the idea of a scout armed with a gun or rod, setting out to actively attack animals who were minding their own business, is not in keeping with the image of scouting, now or in the past. Society is reevaluating its relationship with animals. We now realize that fish are sentient beings...
Clearly the fishery regulations being imposed by the Department of Fish & Game further PETA's agenda by infringing on what many consider to be a God-given right to fish.
The Mission of the Department of Fish and Game is to manage California's diverse fish, wildlife, and plant resources, and the habitats upon which they depend, for their ecological values and for their use and enjoyment by the public.
The Department has several programs that benefit the underprivileged and inner city youth that will be destroyed by the new regulations like the
Urban Fishing Program.
The Urban Fishing Program, which was started in 1993, serves Californians living in the Sacramento, San Francisco and Los Angeles metropolitan areas. The program's Fishing in the City Clinics gives city dwellers an opportunity to learn how to fish, and to fish close to home.
Ponds are stocked with trout in winter and catfish the rest of the year. Anglers 16 years of age and older need to have a fishing license except on Free Fishing Day.
DFG recently responded to a legal action challenging its hatchery and stocking operations, and completed an Environmental Impact Report/Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) that considers species and habitats affected by hatchery-raised rainbow trout. One of the conditions of the EIR/EIS is that each water planted throughout California must go through a Pre-Stocking Evaluation Protocol. This evaluation requires DFG to consider each sensitive or listed species in each water relative to the stocking of trout. DFG fisheries staff have made the evaluations a top priority, but until the review is completed and approved by our administration, rainbow trout or channel catfish cannot be stocked.
With the new regulations, these city ponds and lakes will not be stocked; there will be nothing to catch and no need for a fishing license. The result? Children and adults will not benefit from the learned experience of fishing and the sensitivity that such experiences can bring. In the end the only winner is PETA and their members' self-serving guilty-ridden conscience. Perhaps with the decline in fishing we will see an increase in hunting. One can only speculate.
At an August 3rd-4th Sacramento hearing of the California Fish and Game Commission, the Fish and Game Department will be introducing unprecedented and costly regulations that threaten the very existence of fresh water recreational fishing, an industry that stocks California lakes and ponds and supplies your favorite restaurant and grocery store with fresh and affordable fish.
