In the hmmm department, worth a listen, and some days I just hate opening the news...
I thought about writing this over on our sister blog "Fishing Under Sail" but off hand I expect the people reading "FUS" already know all this...
So, here's the thing... Spearfishing has a seriously bad rap and a very undeserved knee jerk reaction with a lot of cruisers and folks who should know better.
Let's say you go to the local fish market and buy a pound of fish... Chances are that the pound of fish you're buying represents an additional four to nine pounds of by-catch and if you throw in some of the other tactics and unsustainable bad practices commonly used by the commercial fishing industry, it's safe to say that your Mahi Mahi filets represent some seriously heinous ecological practices.
Canned tuna AKA death in a can... well, it's even worse.
So, how about hook and line? I fish and when I catch fish that I don't want I practice catch and release but the fact is that catch and release often results in a damaged or dead fish no matter how careful you are. That said, since the amount of damaged/injured/stressed fish is so minute to the hell that commercial fishing entails, it is still acceptable and preferable by comparison in terms of scale...
Spearfishing, on the other hand, is the only method of putting fish on your table that lets you select your catch. This means you can harvest a meal sized grouper or a medium sized wahoo or mahi that reflects your needs rather than catching fish that would be better off left swimming and breeding.
While a lot of places we visit have made spearfishing or even owning spearfishing gear illegal (and we always follow a country's laws in the matter or simply do not visit them), we find most of those laws are based on fairly spurious logic and bad science. Sure, some spearfishermen in the past have ignored laws, exceeded limits and cleaned out reefs of fish but so do commercial fishermen who have used everything from bleach to dynamite to show that extra profit, which after all is the real problem... Greed! Where spearfishing has been problematic it has almost always been in the hands of commercial fishermen...
Just saying...
Listening to Kitty Daisy & Lewis
So it goes...
