The bizarre propaganda touted by the foreign animal rights organisation Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) in suggesting we should eat whales and ban angling in the UK should be dismissed as the prejudiced nonsense it is.

But while Peta deserves to be given short shrift by anyone really interested in animal welfare or species conservation, there has been a worrying tendency for animal rights dogma to be allowed to take root in the minds of the British public if repeated loudly and frequently enough. All who believe in angling should mobilise now, behind its leading defenders, to prevent this happening to angling as well.

This latest ratcheting-up of the anti-fishing campaign has come as no surprise to those of us who have watched the perverse notion of "animal rights" take hold in the UK in recent years. Perverse, firstly, because of its inconsistency. We still live in a meat-eating, leather-wearing culture, acceptable to the majority of the population. And perverse, secondly, because of its anti-humanitarian facism. People in Sussex are now being bombed, assaulted and intimidated in the "cause" of animal rights.

There is no evidence fish feel pain in a similar way to us - that is, whether they are conscious of any pain. All animals have some pain receptors as part of their survival mechanism but this does not mean the fish would be "aware" of any pain. Whereas, to set against the remote possibility of "fish distress", there are angling's huge benefits to human society: Millions of hours of enjoyable and therapeutic leisure time; an economic contribution in excess of £3 billion; a huge protective influence both on fish species diversity and the waterside environment; and a rich heritage of literature and art inspired by angling.

Whether anglers should support the hunting community has been a hotly-debated topic in the world of angling but the launch of this latest anti-angling campaign should remove any doubts as to where anglers' long-term interests lie. Anglers can no longer duck the animal rights flak directed at all country sports.

As a campaigning organisation, The Countryside Alliance is pledged to combat the animal rights agenda. It has the mission to defend all country sports, including angling, with determination and one of its core campaigns is its Gone Fishing campaign, through which it has already been challenging anti-fishing propaganda going into schools and the media.

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