PETA Urges Indoor Fishing Event, ‘Swap the Trout for Plastic Fish’

PETA Offers to Help Replace Cruel Hooking and Killing of Animals With Fun Humane Entertainment

For Immediate Release:
June 10, 2015

Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382

This year’s Gone Fishin’ event at the Scadding Court Community Centre—which, in previous years, has filled its indoor pool with trout and invited visitors to come kill the animals—could have a humane twist, courtesy of PETA. This morning, the animal rights group sent a letter to the centre offering to send 2,000 colourful plastic fish that visitors could catch instead—a move that would help encourage appreciation for animals rather than activities that harass, harm, and kill them. (And the plastic fish can be used year after year.)

“Fish feel pain and fear, as all animals do, and they suffer immensely when they’re hooked through their sensitive mouths and dragged from the water to suffocate,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “PETA would love to help the Scadding Court Community Centre host an event that respects animals and is fun—not fatal.”

PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to eat”—has also offered to provide the centre with a daily prize for the person who catches the most plastic fish: $100 worth of healthy, humane Gardein Golden Fishless Filets and, of course, vegan tartar sauce.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.

PETA’s letter to Kevin Lee, executive director of the Scadding Court Community Centre, follows.

June 10, 2015

Kevin Lee
Executive Director
Scadding Court Community Centre

Dear Mr. Lee,

I’m writing on behalf of PETA and our more than 3 million members and supporters, including thousands across Ontario, in response to complaints we’ve received about the Gone Fishin’ event that you’ll be hosting starting this Saturday, June 13, in which guests will be encouraged to catch fish from the Scadding Court pool. We urge you to cancel this week-long event and instead plan humane events that will educate the community about ecology and the environment. Because times are changing and respect for other forms of life is growing, wouldn’t you rather encourage appreciation for animals instead of activities that harass, harm, and kill them? We have a proposition that we hope you’ll like, as it would help make this event a win-win situation for both animals and participants.

In place of the live trout you were planning to stock the waters with, we’d be happy to send you 2,000 colourful plastic fish that guests could catch from the pool with a net. In this way, participants could have fun without making light of cruelty to animals. We would be happy to contribute a nice daily prize for the guest who catches the most “fish”: $100 worth of Gardein Golden Fishless Filets and vegan tartar sauce.

Whether people like to think about it or not, fish are sentient beings, capable of feeling fear and pain, especially the pain of being hooked through their sensitive mouths, which are alive with nerve endings. It should be no more acceptable to harm them than it is to harm any other living beings. Please, won’t you consider providing the community with another form of entertainment instead of encouraging people to engage in such insensitive acts?

Thank you for your consideration. We look forward to hearing from you. Sincerely,

Ingrid E. Newkirk
President