Is ‘catch and release’ fishing really ethical?

Ask anyone if they think that cruelty to animals is OK and they’ll say no – but are they being truthful? If they eat meat, they’ll insist that the meat they eat is ‘high-welfare’, but 85 per cent of the UK’s farmed animals endured their shortened lives on brutal factory farms, so nearly everyone who says their meat is ‘high welfare’ is telling porkies.  

Fishing is growing in popularity and there are similarly hollow boasts from those who sit by the riverside. According to the Angling Trust, thousands of young people have been awarded rod licences over the last couple of years and angling influencers now share drone footage and photos with their hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. 

Many of these new kids on the block don’t actually eat the fish they catch. Instead, they do ‘catch and release’ fishing, where they throw the fish they caught back into the river or stream.