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    • ACT Fishing Policy

    Phasing Out Recreational Fishing and Crustacean Harvesting in the ACT

    Goal: To amend the Animal Welfare Act 1992 (ACT) and the Fisheries Act 2000 (ACT) to enact a complete ban on recreational fishing and the harvesting of aquatic invertebrates (specifically crustaceans) across all publicly accessible freshwater bodies within the Australian Capital Territory. 

    Purpose: This proposal will align the ACT with modern ethical standards of animal welfare, protect aquatic life from unnecessary suffering, and establish the Territory as a global leader in legislative protection of fish as sentient animals.

    Background: The Animal Justice Party ACT aims for a legal system that will protect the rights of both humans and other animals. It seeks to create a justice system that respects the rights, interests and bodily security of all.  

     

    I. The Ethical Imperative: From Historical Doctrine to Scientific Fact

    The Silent Shift: Why Sentience Must Transform Law

    For nearly two centuries, animal welfare laws, including those in Australia, have operated under the historical doctrine that fish are simple, unfeeling organisms, incapable of experiencing pain, fear, or complex emotion. This belief, often rooted in outdated philosophies, allowed fish to be relegated to the status of an unthinking resource, shaping legislation that excluded them from the same protections afforded to mammals and birds. This implicit permission has allowed recreational fishing and intensive aquaculture practices to cause demonstrable suffering without legal consequence.

    However, this outdated scientific paradigm has been comprehensively overthrown. The ethical foundation for this proposed ban rests firmly on the contemporary scientific consensus that fish are sentient beings with sophisticated biological and cognitive capacities. 

    Scientific Evidence of Pain and Cognition

    Decades of peer-reviewed research have meticulously established that bony fish possess complex nervous systems. Studies, such as those by Dr Lynne Sneddon in 2003, identified nociceptors (pain receptors) on the heads and mouths of fish that are structurally and functionally analogous to those in mammals. When subjected to painful stimuli, fish exhibit more than a simple reflex; they demonstrate prolonged, complex, and adaptive behaviours consistent with suffering, including the exhibiting of an endogenous opioid pain response, avoidance of painful environments, loss of appetite, and increased respiration rates.

    Beyond the capacity for pain, current research demonstrates that fish possess significant cognitive abilities and social complexity. Studies reviewed by Professor Culum Brown confirm that fish have:

    • Impressive Long-Term Memories: They can recall the location of food and predators for months.
    • Sophisticated Cognition: They exhibit complex navigation, problem-solving skills, and even tool use (e.g., using rocks as anvils to break open shellfish).
    • Complex Social Lives: Fish form stable, differentiated relationships, recognise individuals, and engage in tactical deception.

    Similarly, research into decapod crustaceans (crabs, crayfish, and lobsters) has reached a tipping point. Studies by Professor Robert Elwood and others demonstrate that crustaceans do not merely react via reflex; they show motivational trade-offs, rub affected areas after injury, and experience anxiety-like states that are treatable with benzodiazepines.

    Fish and Crustacean behaviours demonstrate a level of awareness and social intelligence that is utterly inconsistent with the "simple organism" stereotype. The notion that they lack the capacity for consciousness or pain is an outdated misconception.

    II. The Cruelty of Recreational Practices

    Continuing to permit recreational fishing and "yabbying" in the ACT subjects sentient beings to immense and unnecessary suffering.

    Catch-and-Release and Handling Trauma

    • Physical Damage: Fish suffer tearing of the mouth and gills; crustaceans often suffer limb autotomy (shedding of claws) due to rough handling or entanglement in nets and traps.
    • Barotrauma: Rapid ascent from deep water causes internal organs to rupture in many fish species.
    • Physiological Stress: For crustaceans, being pulled from oxygen-rich water into the air causes immediate respiratory distress and a buildup of lactic acid in their tissues, which can be fatal even if released.

    Harvest Suffering

    Methods for killing fish and crustaceans often involve slow, stressful deaths by asphyxiation or "chilling" on ice. For crustaceans, being boiled alive or dismembered while conscious are egregious violations of basic welfare principles that would be illegal if applied to any terrestrial vertebrate.

    III. Legislative Imperative and Conflict Resolution

     

    The EU, UK, New Zealand and the ACT already recognise fish sentience in their animal welfare legislation but, all are yet to allow fish to be protected in the same way as other wild or native animals.

    The current regulatory framework in the ACT presents a stark and unacceptable ethical conflict between animal protection goals and permissive recreational/sporting activities.

    On one hand, the ACT Fisheries Act 2000 licenses, regulates, and actively promotes the activity of recreational fishing, implicitly treating fish in the wild as a resource or recreational/sporting commodity and prioritising human recreation over animal welfare.

    On the other hand, the core ethical legislation, the ACT Animal Welfare Act 1992, requires that persons take all reasonable steps to prevent "unjustifiable, unnecessary or unreasonable” harm to animals. When an animal demonstrates sentience, and the capacity for suffering, any law that mandates preventing unnecessary harm must logically extend its protection to that animal. Allowing fish to be deliberately subjected to the trauma of angling cannot be reconciled with the Act’s Objects (s4(a)).

    Policy Action: The proposal is to amend the Animal Welfare Act 1992 to remove the sections that explicitly permit harm and cruelty to fish wildlife i.e. s17(5)(e), s18(3)(a) and s62(4)(ii). This proposal also seeks to comprehensively amend the Fisheries Act 2000 to designate all wild native and introduced fish species within the ACT as protected from recreational take, effectively repealing sections that authorise licensing and recreational fishing. This legislative reform would enable fish to be treated similarly to other wild animals and harmonise the ACT’s laws, thereby establishing that inflicting physical and psychological trauma for recreation/sport or minor sustenance is illegal.

    IV. Policy Implementation and Community Impact

     

    Implementing this ban involves strategic steps in legislation, enforcement, and public engagement to ensure a smooth transition:

    1. Legislative Change: Fast-track an amendment bill through the ACT Legislative Assembly, emphasising the ethical motivation and alignment with the ACT's animal welfare values.
    2. Enforcement and Monitoring: The ban must be rigorously enforced through clear signage, public awareness campaigns, and training for ACT Park Rangers and police. Monitoring of aquatic populations would shift entirely to non-extractive, conservation-focused methodologies (e.g., eDNA testing or visual surveys).
    3. Countering Opposition: The public campaign must pivot from confrontation to education, highlighting the irrefutable cruelty of current practices. Transition support should be directed toward promoting alternative, non-extractive water recreation to minimise opposition from the small sector of specialised businesses. Noting there are a number of retailers that sell fishing equipment as part of their business in the ACT, but there are only two dedicated fishing equipment retailers.
    4. Promoting Alternatives: The focus must shift to enjoying the waterways in ways that benefit both human well-being and environmental health. The campaign will promote alternative recreational activities such as:
      • Non-Extractive Tourism: Dedicated bird-watching trails, nature photography, and wildlife observation tours.
      • Low-Impact Water Sports: Magnet fishing, snorkeling or scuba diving, Kayaking, stand-up paddleboarding, and swimming.

    The ACT’s urban concentration and high rates of support for companion animal welfare provide a strong base for shifting public opinion. This policy is a progressive, necessary step to ensure the ACT's laws reflect its ethical values regarding all sentient life.

    Consolidated References

    ACT Legislation:

    • Australian Capital Territory. (1992). Animal Welfare Act 1992.
    • Australian Capital Territory. (2000). Fisheries Act 2000.

    Fish Sentience and Welfare Science:

    • Braithwaite, V. (2010). Do Fish Feel Pain? Oxford University Press, USA. (Monograph providing a comprehensive overview of the sentience debate.)
    • Brown, C. (2004, June 12). Not Just a Pretty Face. New Scientist. (Article demonstrating early public awareness of fish intelligence.)
    • Brown, C. (2015). Fish intelligence, sentience and ethics. Animal Welfare, 24(3), 327–334. (Review establishing the ethical case for considering fish welfare based on cognitive capacity.)
    • Brown, C., Laland, K., & Krause, J. (2011). Fish Cognition and Behavior (2nd ed.). Chichester; Ames, IA: John Wiley & Sons. (Book by an international team of experts that explore all major areas of fish learning, including: foraging skills, predator recognition, social organisation and learning, welfare and pain.)
    • Dunlop, R. et al. (2006). Avoidance Learning in Goldfish (Carassius auratus) and Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and Implications for Pain Perception. Applied Animal Behaviour Science. (Empirical study demonstrating learned avoidance behaviour following painful stimuli.) 
    • Elwood, R. W. (2025). A history of pain studies and changing attitudes to the welfare of crustaceans. Animals, 15(3), Article 445. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani15030445. (Review of studies into pain studies in crustacea.)
    • Journal of Undergraduate Life Sciences. (n.d.). "Appropriate maze methodology to study learning in fish." (Academic reference for measuring fish cognition and learning ability.)
    • Levin, P. S., & Schiewe, T. (2018). The ethical dilemma of catch-and-release fishing. Conservation Biology, 32(4), 772–774. (Discussion on the welfare implications of angling practices, including barotrauma and post-release mortality.)
    • Sneddon, L. U. (2003). The evidence for pain in fish. Applied Animal Behaviour Science, 83(2), 153–162. (Foundational study identifying nociceptors and physiological responses to pain in fish.)
    • Sneddon, L.U. 2006. Ethics and welfare: Pain perception in fish. Bulletin of European Association of Fish Pathologists. 26(1): 7-11.
    • Sneddon, L.U., Braithwaite, V.A. & M.J. Gentle. Do fishes have nociceptors? Evidence for the evolution of a vertebrate sensory system. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B-Biological Sciences. 270 (1520): 1115-1121.
    • Webster, J. (2009). Concepts in Animal Welfare. 1. Sentience and Suffering: Why animal welfare matters. University of Bristol School of Veterinary Science, Bristol, UK. (Textbook reference confirming sentience as the ethical basis for welfare.)