Sport fishing must change its image

As with land animals, there is now no excuse for killing endangered large marine fish for sport and trophies. Despite this a significant minority of people in the sport fishing community are still killing these fish as proof of their endeavours in a similar vain to the great white hunters of the 1950's.

Due to intensive industrial overfishing only 10 percent of all large fish species including sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlin and sailfish are left in the sea. The era of "iconic" fish that inspired legends and novels is now well and truly over and every single animal is now precious.

Large predatory fish are usually slow maturing and a 500kg fish may be upwards of 30 years old with the largest and most sought after fish almost invariably female and quite often pregnant.

Whilst it is the commercial fishermen who still endanger these fish the most it is the sport fisherman - who kills their prey instead of catching and releasing, and then gets their photo in the popular press - who is by far the most visible aspect of an almost unimaginable disregard for marine life.

The irony is that the sport fisherman, unlike the hunter on land, can have his cake and eat it. By catching, recording and releasing the fish they can provide a sustainable income for the region and invaluable information for conservation science.

The attitude of the media must change as well. Just as they would not dream of publishing a picture of a big-game hunter standing next to a shot rhino, it must now be unacceptable to show people standing next to a shark or marlin strung up by its tail.

At the beginning of the 20th Century intensive over-hunting had caused the hugely numerous wild land animals to become endangered. At about the time Ernest Hemmingway wrote 'The Old Man and the Sea' in 1951 a growing wildlife protection movement for land animals was forming. By the 1960's and 70's the movement was in full swing (Joy Adamson's non-fictional book 'Born Free' was written in 1960).

No such large-scale conservation movement has been formed for marine animals, especially fish. If there is any hope of conserving these magnificent animals public attitudes to their slaughter will have to play catch-up with land conservation and change dramatically.

Why is marine conservation so neglected?

There are hundreds of organisations in the UK devoted to the conservation of the land and its animals. Incredibly there is only one well known organisation entirely dedicated to protecting our marine environment, the Marine Conservation Society.

Despite the fact that the UK is an island which depends on the sea for it's survival (well the Gulf Stream at least) there are more organisations devoted to saving bats than the animals that live below our chilly waters.

Even though some progress has been made most people still regard the sea and the animals in it as nothing more than a exploitable resource. Marine mammals and some reptiles are afforded legal protection, but almost unbelievably, hardly any native marine fish species (including the great white shark should it ever visit us) are protected by law.

Ten percent of the UK landmass is protected but less than one percent of our entire surrounding seas. Our first national park was created in 1951 but it was only 2003 when the tiny Lundy Island Marine Reserve received a no-take zone status.

National newspapers that wouldn't dream of publishing a picture of a man with a gun standing next to a shot lion will still publish pictures of endangered sharks like the thresher and mako killed by so-called sports fishermen for no other reason than an ego trip.

Perhaps what the marine conservation movement needs is a 'Born Free' for our generation, 'An Inconvenient Truth' for our marine environment? The documentary 'The End of the Line', based on the fish loving visionary Charles Clover's book of the same name is attempting this feat, and god knows our marine animals currently need all the help they can get.