Page 31 - BBC Wildlife - August 2017 UK

talking

“I HAVE A FRIEND WHO

NEGOTIATED THE RESCUE
Left: mackerel
catch; below: a
diver (holding a OF THREE LARGE KOI FISHES
camera) removes a
fishing hook from FROM A PUTRID TANK.”
a shark’s jaws.

Another friend, a biologist, has founded
Fish Feel, North America’s first organisation
dedicated to the protection of our underwater
cousins. Samaritans with buckets hurry to
threatened locales to transfer mud-slicked
refugees from construction sites, drying rivers
and lakebeds. And a growing cadre of intrepid
divers swim with sharks, first earning their
trust, then using belly and face rubs to send
them into a state of hyper-relaxation, and
finally deploying bolt-cutters and pliers to
extract large fishing hooks from their mouths.
And there are those who will simply go
the extra mile for a fish. I have such a friend,
who received an anonymous call, went to the
address, and negotiated the rescue of three
large koi fishes from a filthy, putrid tank
where they had languished for 11 years. She
drove them two hours to a well-kept koi pond
at an Asian restaurant, where they now live
comfortably in the company of their kind.
Lastly, there is love. I have received letters
from people who truly love their fishes. A
college professor from Spokane, Washington
dying mackerel or a million herring when concern. A law enacted in 2008 by the was greeted daily by the goldfish she had
hoisted and winched aboard, and long-lines Swiss federal parliament requires anglers rescued from being flushed. Pearl would
stretching for miles that have also decimated to complete a course on catching fish more swim to the surface to feed from her hand.
albatrosses and other pelagic seabirds. Not humanely. The Dutch government has clearly She described the loss of Pearl, age 17, as like
only are they cruel – suffocation, crushing and stated the need for better stunning and killing losing a beloved family cat or dog.
decompression are not high on my list of ways methods for fishes, and the Foundation for Another professional, from Gainesville,
to die – our fishing methods are notoriously the Protection of Fish has begun lobbying to Florida, developed a game with her blue
wasteful. About 100 million kilos of dead or turn those words into action. In Germany, discus fish in which they chased each other
dying bycatch (including whales, dolphins fishing tournaments where the catch is from each side of the glass. She told me that
and sea turtles as well as seabirds) are tossed thrown back in the water after it is weighed “when I would cup my hands just below the
back into the ocean every day. Demand for have been banned, along with the use of water line, he would turn on his side and
shark fins and meat has sent many shark minnows as live bait. In parts of Europe it is swim up into my hands and just lay there
populations into a tailspin. now unlawful to keep a goldfish – a naturally while I stroked his side.”
social animal that can live 40 years – alone
These are encouraging signs. As rates of
Grouper and moray eel: Reinhard Dirscherl/Alamy; mackerel: Paulo Oliveira/Alamy; shark: Speared Apparel/Barcroft Media N pressure on wild populations have an ichthyologist friend, a retired biology life, humanity is flickering toward a more
o wonder a 2015 study concluded
education and literacy rise, and as we grow
in a barren fishbowl.
Beyond laws for fishes, there is mercy. I
cognisant of our interdependence with all
that we have lost about half of
all marine life since 1970. Fish
inclusive era in our relations with other life
farming has not relieved the
professor who, growing tired of killing fishes
forms. Basic principles of respect for all
on teaching and collecting expeditions,
invented a portable device that allows fishes
members of our own kind are being extended
either. Smaller, wild-caught species such as
herring and menhaden are fed to farmed
to other beings once excluded. Inexorably,
captured in the field to be photographed
fishes (and to livestock and pets) to satisfy
and released on site. Sales of his teaching-
fishes are being swept into the current.
diners’ predilection for the flesh of larger,
photographic tank have saved over a
JONATHAN BALCOMBE works for the
predatory fish – think salmon and tuna.
million individuals from being preserved
But all is not lost. Fishes are just beginning
a Fish Knows (Oneworld,£12.99).
museum shelves.
to take their place in our circle of moral
BBC Wildlife
August 2017 in formaldehyde to sit mostly unused on Humane Society and is author of What 31