People who are considering taking up spearfishing or are curious about it may have concerns regarding the ethics involved in the sport. This is understandable as the fish will certainly die an untimely death. In contrast to the majority of other methods of obtaining meat, spearfishing is just as ethical as any other method that you can find.
To answer these questions though, we do need to add a caveat. Spearfishing can only be as ethical as the person who practices it.
In this piece, I’ll be trying to explore the ethics involved in spearfishing as well as its humaneness and environmental impact.
Is the sport of spearfishing ethical?
If you are of the opinion that eating and killing animals is wrong The only solution to this question is that spearfishing is an ethical activity. I’ll explore the ethical aspect and the humaneness of spearfishing down below but killing animals has been a practice humans have engaged in since the day we were first a human species.
An ethical spearo may skip shots of weak species and can let even the prized fish have more offspring. It is also possible to be selective, and only take two or three of any specific species from one location before moving on to the next. Spearfishing, if done properly, can be the best way to define sustainability. It is the process of taking a limited number of fish while letting the fishing industry survive and thrive.
Is spearfishing humane?
The humane nature of spearfishing with professional spearfishing gear comes into the ethical question, but I am of the opinion that it is its own separate issue. There’s some debate over the amount of pain that fish really feel, but for this argument, let us ignore the issue completely and conclude that their survival instinct as well as a stark aversion towards death is in itself a type of pain.
Here’s how fish dies when it’s taken by a professional spearfisherman
The fish is shot, and the shaft of the spear goes through the body. The spear is often able to enter the brain, and the fish will die instantly. If not, then the spearo has to fight the fish in. An experienced spearo will then put a knife through the brain of the fish, killing it. This is done for ethical reasons, as well as to improve its quality.
If a fish is smaller, the end of life usually occurs in a matter of minutes after being shot. When it comes to bigger game fish the fight may last for a longer time and can last up to ten minutes before its demise. The same is true with fishing by reel or rod, although there is the argument that hooking by the mouth is less traumatizing than being stabbed by a spear.