Among the Intellectualoids

...Quite the contrary...

...One is a deep desire to succeed...

...Johnny Davis, the bassfishing tournament organizer, says at one of his presentations at an elementary school there were nearly 600 students...

...Reba was afraid somebody was going to come up and give her a black eye," says Davis, who organized the tournament...

...These people have a religious approach to animals, you know," says George Howard, executive director of the New Jersey State Federation of Sportsman Clubs, which represents 150,000 hunters and anglers...

...Tom Hopkins, listed as a professor of marine science at the University of Alabama: "It's ghastly to conceive, but put yourself in the fish's place...

...In another sense, however, this is one of the more lopsided of wars...

...We're also part of the 'hooked on fishing, not on drugs' program for inner city school kids...

...But why the alarm...

...One Alabama principal called to warn that parents would react violently, she reports—indeed, she put out a press release on the incident...

...They don't think you should be able to use animals for any purpose...

...awn Carr, PETA's campaign coordinator in the anti-fishing crusades, admits to fishing when a child...

...There was a thundering herd of two PETA protesters," says Ann Lewis of Bass-master magazine (circulation: 600,000...

...In Germany, a Green Party initiative banned catch and release fishing in all waters, Carr boasts, while livebaiting "has been banned in several European countries...

...Well, perhaps some are, but others are most decidedly against receiving this type of moral instruction...

...If we don't, there's no possibility of them changing it...

...Also dis44 PETA would deny people the right to eat or even catch fish—a right the fish themselves enjoy...

...After issuing a verbal warning I gave chase but my stalker disappeared into the mountainous terrain, where he eluded the summoned sheriff's deputy...

...During the William Weld era, PETA requested the state of Massachusetts to close fishing at Walden Pond...

...This year she set out on a two-week tour of public elementary schools in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee...

...While the assailant didn't stand up and identify himself as an animal rights flake, other anglers later told me that they have experienced attempted stonings while fishing in the area...

...Story scoffs at PETA's use of a Thoreau quote elsewhere in the letter: "...I cannot fish without falling a little in self -respect...

...It's damned good at creating a news splash...

...Unguided anglers catch one and a quarter fish per hour, with more being caught by guided parties, for a total of some-,ACKGT, The American Spectator • December 1997 69 where around 600,000 catches a year...

...One was dressed up in that fish outfit...

...Sure, it's unethical to drop a fish on the rocks or kick it down a dirt road," says Johnny Davis of Angler's Choice, which distributes a magazine and arranges fishing tournaments...

...Like many idealists she knows she has the truth on her side, and that reasonable people will come around by and by...

...So, is Charlie the Tuna close to achieving equal rights with Woody Harrelson...

...One cohort was fanning the other...

...People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked Carter in a letter last month to consider changing Fishkill's name...

...Well, fellow anglers, it seems we have another fight on our DAVE SHIFLETr is a Virginia writer...

...But those with a soft spot in their heart for idealists will be taken by Carr...

...The third is an amused and confrontation-seeking news media that is quick to rise to any bait PETA dangles before it...

...Five rabbits, two goats, a sheep, and a pig were stabbed or crushed to death despite being kept inside a school's padlocked barn...

...At another school, children were told over the loudspeaker system "do not talk to the fish...

...PETA chieftain Tracy Reiman told the Wall Street Journal that fishing is "the final frontier of animals rights...

...What people don't realize is that animal rights activists don't even think people should have a right to own pets, much less hunt or fish...

...I don't get in people's faces...

...Modestly named "Save Our Schools," the elementary level campaign features Gil the Fish and Larry the Lobster, the animal rights world's versions of Joe Camel...

...Instead these fish are extremely healthy, and they surely do not live short lives...

...Winston Churchill eff Thomas, managing editor for the j New England Military Bass Newsletter, employed the stirring quote to launch an equally impassioned essay entitled "A Call to Arms," believing no doubt that Sir Winston, one of history's predominant resisters of tyranny and a fellow angler, would surely be in his boat...

...It's been such a long, outstanding name," Carter said Wednesday...

...But the mayor noted Wednesday that the name has 44 Though protesters never showed, the threat of a protest can be enough to inspire a story...

...PETA is directly challenging the long-standing and all but unanimous view that fish are many links below mankind in the great chain of being, and therefore reach their highest station in life just after exiting the frying pan...

...If they have problem with Christ, I have a problem with them...

...Carr recalls a recently enlightened boy asking her...

...Absolutely not,' she says...

...Moreover, fish have been known to go out of their way, and even risk their own lives, to aid others in trouble...

...It is this passion that unnerves PETA's adversaries...

...Standing on a nearby ridge, eighty or so yards away, was a bearded man firing a hunting slingshot in my direction...

...The threatenedprotesters never showed up, which is quite common, though the promise of a protest can be enough to inspire a story...

...Carr knows that at least seven protesters were there, but doesn't know if any more attended...

...On one side is the regular fishing public, some 36 million strong (with many more occasional fishers), backed by thousands of years of tradition, a huge fishing industry—$4o billion a year is spent on bassfishing alone—and the entire political establishment...

...The trouble, at least from Carr's per\\I spective, is that very few children ever hear her presentation or tango with 0 Gil the Dancing Fish...

...Story is no friend of animal rights activists, an attitude hardened by what he says is an immense amount of nasty mail...

...AP)—An animal rights group says this Hudson Valley village has a cruel name and might do well to change it to something more compassionate, like Fishsave...

...Human beings, PETA argues, are not at the apex of an evolutionary or religious process that gives them "dominion" over other animals...

...Last year's Bassmaster Classic was also targeted...

...Look at a bonefish...

...He is no doubt correct...

...Mayor George Carter won't take the bait "I'm not going to change the name of Fishkill...

...When they're hooked, there's a fight/flight sort of thing...

...Buntjer, to be sure, manages some of the most fabled trout water in America...

...You hook them and they take off in the other direction at 25 miles an hour...

...But to say they feel pain in the sense that humans understand pain is a huge leap and is not supported, to my knowledge, by any reputable study...

...Yet by appealing to human reason, PETA acknowledges, if not admits, that humans are by any sane measure higher beings...

...But he admires PETA's ability to attract attention...

...PETA would also dispatch scuba divers to scare fish from beneath party boats...

...A PETA official, quoted in Bassin' magazine, said his organization would throw rocks to scare away fish...

...Its goal is quite simple: "To stop the unnecessary torture of fish by pointing out the cruelty of fishing and the health risks associated with eating fish...

...While fish do not express pain and suffering in ways that humans easily recognize, they do gasp and struggle when caught," PETA explains in "Aquatic Agony," an anti-fishing handout...

...We run Soo kids through our conservation program...

...He found himself in the presence of infidels...

...Similarly: • Anglers also often impale their victims on a "stringer" and dangle them in water so that they won't die quickly and "spoil...

...There's no doubt that before much longer we'll be facing initiatives against fishing," he says...

...A bright youngster might note a contradiction in PETA's philosophy...

...Lessons in Disrespect," a PETA publication aimed at schoolchildren, suggests an all-seeing entity: An elementary-school girl, pecked by a chick she was holding, threw the chick against the wall...

...This program, known to every one of the fishing advocates I spoke with, has in fact been all but shut out of the schools...

...When students asked that the project be stopped, the teacher refused...

...PETA stresses a UK study known as "The Medway Report" to bolster its case: "[T]he evidence suggests that all vertebrates (including fish...

...68 December r 9 9 7 • The American Spectator dent's parent was told that some of the students had made the warm water too hot...

...Fishers are much more interested in taking part in a discussion than hunters," she adds...

...Story shoots back with a Thoreau quote of his own: "Not that I am less humane than others, but I did not pity the fishes nor the worms...

...Tree huggin' is fine—as long as you don't interfere with fishing and hunting...

...The other is the startled reaction to its message, which amplifies the issue...

...experience similar sensation to a greater or less degree in response to noxious stimuli...

...Christ was a fish-44 Would Carr throw rocks at me...

...Fish in the river's catch and release section are much larger, older, and healthier than fish in unprotected waters...

...If hooking and handling really killed fish like PETA says, there would be a lot of dead fish in the San Juan...

...Our sport is under siege by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and the folks who think like them...

...But fishing reduces stress and pain in people, so if you have to sacrifice a few fish, that's the way it goes...

...One of them was dressed up like Flipper...

...But I do have discussions with fishermen...

...I don't get in people's faces.' ,1 erman...

...Even if we euthanized all the fish before we caught them, they'd still be against it...

...hould the bassers begin to overreact, S it will probably be because they are convinced that they are under general attack by a huge horde...

...Thirty-five to 40 gerbils who were kept as classroom "pets" were intentionally stomped on by children at the end of the school year...

...Geological Survey at the Columbia River Research Lab, is not similarly entangled...

...PETA documents do create an unnerving sense of omniscience, as if not a single hair on an American gerbil's head can be mussed without the organization's vast spy network reporting into headquarters over its animal abuse hotline...

...Just so, agrees Mark Wethington, a fisheries biologist for New Mexico Game and Fish...

...Despite this status, PETA would deny people a right to eat or even catch fish —a right the fish themselves enjoy...

...Fish who are released can suffer such severe stress from being "played" that they may die even though they manage to swim away or may be so weakened that they are easy prey for predators...

...Word that PETA has declared war on angling spread quickly...

...We do know, however, that fish brains don't have a cerebral cortex, which in mammals is where pain is located...

...PETA had better watch out in Texas," says Debra Dean, star of the Honey Hole bass fishing show and publisher of the 40,000 circulation magazine of the same name...

...One of the more notable took place in July at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf...

...Perhaps believing the former governor to be a sap, PETA really laid it on: Fish have individual personalities, too...

...One could argue that these two fellows are somewhat biased...

...Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque...

...Wethington, who manages the world famous San Juan River trout fishery, also disputes PETA's notion that catch and release fishing—"torture and release" as the organization has it—drastically shortens a fish's life...

...Another factor is that fish don't seem to have as many neurons in the lips...

...Physiologically, they're not set up to register pain like humans are...

...Surprisingly, the number of "official" demonstrations in the two years since kickoff is relatively small—twenty-five by Carr's count (some activists freelance in this regard, she adds) — and do not tend to be massive undertakings...

...This slight problem is overpowered, however, by PETA's main selling point: Fish feel pain...

...Activists promised to protest at fishing tournaments...

...Story and most of those interviewed are not at the panic stage, but are wary...

...We looked over and saw that the fish had taken off its head...

...Many are seven years old, and some older...

...Many fishing advocates won't argue that fishing is painless, preferring the view that pain comes in degrees and that most anglers attempt to limit the harm done to their prey...

...Far from displaying those rabid characteristics often associated with crusaders, she is pleasingly stoic, upheld she says by John Stuart Mill's observation that "Every great social movement has three stages: Ridicule, discussion, adoption...

...Besides television and newspapers, Carr has done "countless" radio interviews...

...This makes condom distribution appear innocent...

...Anglers log at least 300,000 hours per year on the protected four miles of the river...

...There was a lot of heat and humidity...

...I,I "Can't we pass a law against fishing...

...If you put a hook through a human's lips, he's going to come to the reel very quickly...

...If you do that in Texas, the fishermen will call the game warden to arrest the protester after they beat the hell out of him...

...Kill" translates to "stream" in Dutch....Does PETA really expect a village or town to change its name because people might confuse it with slaughtering fish...

...Much like humans, it seems (though fishing lures of course imitate distressed fish, which triggers the strike reflex...

...Not surprisingly, these beliefs are much disputed, both scientifically and by anglers...

...Mary Tyler Moore continues her campaign against lobster eating, while Paul and Linda McCartney have delivered attacks on both fishing and hunting...

...One stuBut you better not eat it, says PETA...

...He is a bit more cautious, but only a bit...

...In September I did a study on about 2,000 fish from those four miles," says Wethington...

...the aquatic animals in these streams are likely to spend their entire short lives being repeatedly traumatized and injured...

...Those latter discussions, she recognizes, are perhaps the most controversial aspect of PETA's animal rights activities...

...These pistol-totin' boys won't like this sort of thing...

...We have to try...

...Nobody knows for sure whether fish feel pain...

...But Carr and Gil the Fish found themselves swimming in treacherous waters...

...Other activists would flail the water with bamboo poles...

...You have to remember that this is a great big old publicity stunt for the purpose of raising more bucks...

...And children...

...The angler-induced mortality rate in those four miles is one to two percent, he says...

...At this point the author must admit to a personal bias, the result of an incident on Colorado's South Platte River a couple of Easters ago...

...Would Carr throw rocks at me...

...Worse yet, PETA promised to take its campaign into the public schools, where it hopes to undo traditional views of fishing...

...Children are quite receptive of her arguments, she says, which are driven home I by comparing fish with family pets, then asking if kids would torture their kittens...

...some of the fish leapt out of the water and died...

...Of twenty on the itinerary, only two admitted her...

...A guinea pig taken home for winter break suffered a broken back...

...77 tributed is a quotation from Dr...

...There were only five or six protesters but it's a big story for the media...

...Fishkill, a village of 1,93o about 65 miles north of New York City, traces its name to the region's original Dutch settlers...

...We're trying to do good out there," he recalls...

...There were hooking scars on 8o percent, and only two with fungus (which can be caused by handling...

...Thomas explains: "Let every New England Military Bass fisherman worth his rod and reel pay careful heed to the words you are about to read...

...Many trout streams are so intensively fished that they are subject to "catch and release" regulations requiring that all fish caught must be let go...

...The artist formerly known as Prince has spoken out for fish," Carr reports, as has Woody Harrelson...

...The American Spectator • December 1997 71...

...When Christ went around looking for apostles, he basically looked for fishermen...

...It's like dentistry without Novocain, drilling into exposed nerves...They experience agony parallel to our own...

...Rick Story of the Wildlife Legislative Fund of America, a coalition of sportsman groups that accepts industry support, makes a wider point...

...And since they enjoy tactile stimulation, they often gently rub against each other...

...The insidious thing about these arguments is that they soften people up," Story says, adding that twenty-five states now have the initiative process and that a few, including Colorado, have restricted some types of hunting thanks to animal rights initiatives...

...That and the possibility of seeing an activist caned with a spinning rod no doubt explains the ready response to PETA's press alerts...

...Humans, in this sense, are second-hand citizens in PETA's world order...

...On the other side is PETA, with a $1.3 million annual budget for its entire animal rights program and, according to officials, just over 400,000 members...

...Who knows," (PETA spokesman Davey) Shepherd said...

...They talk to each other, form bonds, and sometimes grieve when their companions die....Fish also enjoy companionship and develop special relationships with each other...

...The belief that this battle is over man's proper place in the universe is not lost on Tom Fote, legislative chairman of the Jersey Coast Angler's Association...

...Obviously they feel something or they wouldn't flee...

...She believes we have entered the second stage, with some exceptions of course...

...Celebrity support of the cause also adds to the perception of a large crusade...

...Thus inspired, PETA recently sent a letter to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt asking him to ban fishing in National Parks, though at this writing Babbitt hasn't written back...

...While stalking trout I noticed a series of splashes, first mistaken for feeding fish...

...17 stood since the late if000's...

...Asked for a quote, Fote got right to the heart of the matter...

...Its much feared elementary school "indoctrination" program is basically the work of one woman accompanied by a compatriot dressed as a fish, neither of whom has had much luck getting inside the schoolhouse door...

...Alex Maule, research physiologist for U.S...

...hough fish are hardly as cuddly as T puppies, bunnies, and other PETA protectorates, the belief that they should be left alone appears every bit as strong...

...The future PETA maiden didn't feel good about hooking the fish then, and is quite adamant about opposing fishing now...

...hooking one is the moral equivalent of gaffing one's grandmother...

...here's nothing in the literature I know of that would indicate that fish feel pain, or at least that fish feel pain like humans do," says Mike Buntjer, a fishery biologist for the U.S...

...Thomas is not the fishing world's only Paul Revere...

...PETA insists otherwise: Fish are our brothers and sisters...

...Carr credits the somewhat novel nature of the message with press interest...

...PETA also threatened a protest at country sensation Reba McEntire's charity bassfishing contest...

...These entries into PETA's Great Ledger are duly footnoted, as is this report on the demise of a group of cold-blooded classroom guests: One school's science project calls for students to place fish in warm water, then cold water, to demonstrate the effects of the change on respiratory rates...

...So along comes PETA...

...This misimpression can only be attributed to PETA's success with the press, which is the awe of PETA's sworn enemies...

...Absolutely not," she declares...

...Fote encountered a handful of PETA protesters during last year's National Fishing Day festivities at Cape May, New Jersey...

...hands," Bill Degnan, head of the Jersey Coast Anglers Association, informed his colleagues...

...Meanwhile, the "Get Hooked on Fishing, Not on Dope" pro-fish70 December /997 • The American Spectator ing program has over loo,oco participants...

...Carr does not seem concerned...

...Yet there are at least three things going PETA's way...

...The issue really isn't pain...

...Mysteriously, the splashes moved closer and closer and I suddenly realized I was under fire...

...Or by experience, Buntjer adds...

...Not all of this coverage, it should be said, is necessarily welcome: FISHKILL, N.Y...

...PETA is a big media machine," says Rick Story of the Wildlife Legislative Fund...

...The San Juan River, in fact, is PETA's version of Fish Hell...

...A parakeet left in a school building over winter break died when the temperature dropped too low...

...A fish runs the other way...