In a follow-up to a story we ran in September on animal rights group PETA’s latest campaign targeting fishermen – ‘Do anglers have small rods’ (read story here) – comes news the campaign has been refused billboard space in a Tasmanian airport.
In the lead-up to this weekend’s opening of the National Fly Fishing Tournament, an airport advertising company has denied PETA space for placement of its anti-fishing ad at Launceston Airport. PETA’s billboard shows a fisherman with fishing rod extended from his lower midsection, and caption: “Are You Overcompensating for Something?”
According to PETA spokesman and “former angler” Jason Baker, “The point of our billboard is to knock anglers down to size for going after the littler guys.”
As well as making spurious claims that anglers inflict pain on fish, PETA has also attempted to discredit the proven scientific benefits of consuming fish by saying “eating fish is dangerous business. Fish can accumulate extremely high levels of chemical residues in their flesh and fat, as much as 9 million times that of the water in which they live.”
In Fisho’s view PETA’s latest schlocky attack on fishing got the treatment it deserved.
