Recreation and the “Right to Fish” Movement: Anglers and Ecological Degradation in the Florida Keys (2013)
McClenachan, Loren (Author)
Environmental History
Volume: 18, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 76-87
Edition Details: Part of a special section, “New Directions in Marine Environmental History”
Language: English
Marine environmental history has exposed the nuances of long-term change in productivity, technology, and economics of commercial fisheries but, to date, has paid less attention to the relationship between environmental decline and recreational fisheries. Fishing for fun is commonly considered a low-impact pastime, and anglers are heralded as conservationists, despite evidence that recreational fishing has substantially reduced populations of vulnerable nearshore fish. This essay explores the role of anglers in the decline and conservation of marine fish populations by examining the history of sportfishing in the Florida Keys. Both recreational and commercial fishers contributed to overfishing in Florida over the last century through direct extraction of fish, but recreational anglers drove declines by propagating a myth that abundant fish persist that everyone deserves a chance to catch. In the last two decades, marine angling groups have created a Right to Fish movement that supports legislation to protect their perceived fishing rights. The movement has obstructed effective conservation policy and encouraged continuing pressure on an exhausted reef ecosystem. Such political activism among marine anglers stands in stark contrast to the tradition of conservation-minded sportsmen, who have supported habitat protection and areas closed as reserves on land and in freshwater. As attention to marine environmental history grows, marine recreational fisheries should continue to provide abundant material for analysis of the relationship between conservation and sport, as well as among tourism, economic decline, and environmental change.
...MoreArticle Chiarappa, Michael (2013) New Directions in Marine Environmental History: An Introduction. Environmental History (pp. 3-11).
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