Some people who are considering taking up spearfishing or are curious about it may have concerns regarding the ethics involved in the sport. It’s understandable because spearfishing is certainly a way to meet an untimely death. Yet, when you compare it to all other methods of procuring meat, spearfishing is as ethical as every other method you’ll find.
In order to answer these questions, we do need to include an important caveat. Spearfishing can only be considered as ethical as the person who practices it.
In this blog post, I’ll address the general ethics of spearfishing in addition to its humaneness and its impact on the environment.
Is fishing for spears ethical?
If you don’t believe that eating and killing animals is wrong the only response to this question must be that yes, spearfishing is an ethical activity. I’ll explore the humaneness and ec0-friendliness of spearfishing later, but hunting animals is something humans have practiced since the moment we first became a species.
An ethical spearo may avoid taking shots on vulnerable species, and sometimes let even prized fish live to create more offspring. It is also possible to choose to take only one or two of any given species from one spot before moving on to the next. Spearfishing, done correctly, can be the best way to define sustainability. It involves taking a tiny amount of fish and making sure that the fishery can sustain itself and flourish.
Is spearfishing a humane activity?
The morality of spearfishing influences the ethical question, but I am of the opinion that it is its own issue. There’s some debate regarding how much pain fish can really feel, but for the sake of this argument, we’ll ignore the issue completely and conclude that their survival instinct and intense aversion to death are an expression of pain.
Here’s how a salmon dies when it is taken by an ethical spearfisherman: It is then shot, and the shaft of the spear travels through the body. In most cases, the spear will be able to penetrate the brain and the fish will be dead instantly. If due to old spearfishing gear fish doesn’t die instantly, the spearo must fight the fish. Good spearo will never let that happen, he will replace his gear with a new one and then he will stab an instrument into the fish’s brain to kill it. This is done both in order to ensure ethical standards and to improve how the food is prepared.
In the case of a smaller fish death usually comes within minutes of being shot. In the case of larger game fish fighting can last for longer and could take up to up to ten minutes before it dies. This is also true for fishing on a rod or reel however there is an argument that being hooked by an opening in the mouth could be less painful than being hit by spears.