SPCA inspector aims to end gamefishing

A Northland SPCA inspector says he is prepared to prosecute gamefishers for animal cruelty on the grounds that fish have feelings.

Bay of Islands inspector Jim Boyd wants gamefishing to stop, claiming fish can feel pain and that fishing causes them "severe distress".

He warned gamefishers they could face fines of up to $125,000 and/or six months in jail.

However, a Bay of Islands charter boat operator says it would be hard to prove fish had feelings and the SPCA would be wasting time and money.

Gamefishing can involve playing a fish for long periods - sometimes several hours.

Mr Boyd said: "We're putting the gamefishing on notice that they're going to have to change their attitude.

"The law is clear: hunting and fishing are allowed but there is a fine line from when it goes from hunting and fishing, into cruelty."

The former police prosecutor said he would be prepared to prosecute as two researchers, Jeffrey Masson and Auckland University Professor John Montgomery, say fish do feel pain.

Professor Montgomery, a fish behaviour specialist, said fish could feel pain but not on the same level humans could.

"They have registrable pain fibres and pain pathways in the nervous system and there's quite good behavioural evidence that they feel pain.

"It's been found that if an irritant is put on the lips of fish they show abnormal behaviour such as rubbing their lips on the tank or on a bank. But when researchers gave morphine they stopped doing it," Professor Montgomery said. "If pain release puts the fish back into normal behaviour mode then it's a reasonable presumption that fish feel some sort of pain."

He said the belief that fish had a 3- second memory was an urban myth.

Mr Boyd's comments follow complaints made about an American man taking 14 hours to catch a world-record broadbill in Northland last year.

The 369kg fish was caught on a light rating line and complainants believed that using such a light line, rated at 37kg, was cruel, Mr Boyd said.

Under the Animal Act 1999, fish are protected against ill-treatment.

Mr Boyd had not tried to prosecute the American because at the time he could not find scientists who would testify that fish felt pain.

Bay of Islands charter operator Geoff Stone said he doubted a prosecution would succeed.

"It wouldn't succeed because I doubt that the SPCA could prove the fish was in pain," he said.

"Reality would suggest that if a fish felt pain the way that we would feel pain with a hook in its mouth, they wouldn't keep swimming away from the boat," he said.

"In the commercial fishing industry, swordfish and other pelagic fish are being caught by long lines where a 14-hour hook-up is normal," Mr Stone said.

SPCA acting national chief executive Jenny Prattley supported Mr Boyd's stance.

"It's not a sport to me. It's just for human gratification and their prowess. We wouldn't tolerate that if it was a mammal."

- NZPA