We all knew it was coming; there have been enough rumours of thesecampaigns against our sport for many months. Angling is supposed tobe the biggest participant sport in the country and yet when thePETA campaign arrived, complete with dog hanging from hook poster, where was our response?
I have heard countless comments against all these activists, abouttheir non-scientific based facts, their old arguments and theirpre-judgmental attitudes, and yet they are the ones with the huge websites, marketing campaigns and more information than you couldswallow on any one of their chosen subjects.
I am not saying what they write is factual or otherwise, but whatI am saying is this: Their issues are well put together and theyargue their cases very well, however incorrectly that may be. But that isnot the issue. The real issue is that the general public respond to what theysee, read and hear, and in the information war these groups havetheir act together far more than we have.
So what is it we are doing?
We are prepared to spend countless hours bickering over differentaspects of our sport, yet we wont get together long enough to put agood case for our defence.
Worse than that, the only defence we tend to see is a string ofabuse about how they are a bunch of nutters, slags and otherexpletives. Usually mounted with some strong suggestions as to wherethey should all go.
We say we take great care of our fish and we return them to thewater in as healthy condition as possible. Yet week after week, andmonth after month, you can see pictures of fish with lip damage, fishwell away from the water’s edge, fish being handled by dry hot hands,fish with hooks and lures still in their mouths, and nets crammed tothe rings with catches, in almost any angling magazine.
These ‘anti’s’ must love our naivety and stupidity, for surely weare happily feeding them all the ammunition they will ever need.
We all say that their arguments about us damaging wildlife are old and unfounded, and that we police the waterways. If this is so, (and I strongly believe it is) then why can’t we come up with facts and figures to support this? Surely between the EA, the NFA, the NAA, the SAA and the ACA, we have some real facts and figures of what we do; real cases, crimes brought to trial, etc. Because you can soon find people that are willing to come up with cases of damaged wildfowl and such against us.
We admit that there are problems with undesirable elements to ourranks (litter louts, stock movers, poaching, etc) Yet we have yet tomount a successful campaign to stop them.
You may all say:
‘But I take my line and lost tackle home!’
‘I dispose of all my rubbish’, etc, etc,
Yet I think every one of us can probably remember an instance inrecent weeks of a bird with line round its foot, line and tackle lostin trees, and even rubbish on the banks (anglers or otherwise).
So if none of us are doing it… who the hell is?
And when we do spot it, are we doing enough to correct it?
Because you can guarantee, when push comes to shove, they willprovide plenty evidence against us.
So I have to ask:
- Where are our PR agencies?
- Where are our pro-angling web sites?
- Where are our resources to counter these attacks?
Because it is no use burying our heads in the sand hoping it willall go away. They may not win today or tomorrow, but they willcontinue to nibble away at us a bit at a time, and as long as we areas inactive as we are at the moment, THEY WILL EVENTUALLY WIN.
So isn’t it time we stopped arguing over whether carpers reallyhave less brain cells, or barbel hunters can’t see past the end oftheir rods, and we pulled together as one angling federation that waspro all-angling?
