What do we teach our children about the world around us? Do we teach them to honor and respect every good thing that nature has to offer or do we teach them that the world is their oyster and they can do whatever they like?
Someone said that if we allow kids to kill a few wild trout that we are doing them a great favor and making them love fishing and the outdoors all the more.
I firmly believe that type of thinking is deadly wrong. We teach them to harvest and take regardless of the consequences. We teach them that conservation is less important than our selfish wants. We teach them that killing a wild fish has no long term effects on the general well being of that endangered fishes future. We teach them that instant gratification wins out and later consequences do not matter.
Why not teach kids to love and nurture and work for the improvement of the last remaining wild trout populations we have? Why not teach them to work for the betterment of the resource? Why not teach them that releasing wild fish is a good thing and helps insure the future of the species. Those who just want to kill will not admit that the pratice of catch and relese has helped bring some trout populations back from the brink.
I was ready to write about the north coast and the beautiful fish that I encountered there yesterday. I am pretty critical of that region because it has so much to offer yet some soulless and selfish people believe that the well of wild fish will never dry up.
Sure what are a few dead trout going to matter in the grand scheme of things? It's so much more important to allow a young angler to kill a few and so he will feel good about himself.After all his father and his grandfather killed wild trout with apparent reckless abandon so why should the next generation not be allowed to?
Indeed it was that recklessness that got us into the situation we are in now.
Careless adults with run away egos think this heritage of harvest should continue unchecked. They make excuses and accuse those that actually do care of doing harm because we practice catch and release. Do you think they may feel a little guilty? or are they so gullible and ignorant so as to not know any better. Perhaps they are just a victim of what ever whim might strike them at the time.
I feel so very strongly about conservation of our last remaining wild fish that when some narcissistic egomaniac writes about what a great idea killing a few coastal cutthroat trout is for kids I get what I believe is righteous indignation.
It takes someone so selfish and self absorbed that they care little about anything but themselves.
It's an emotional issue for me and while it may seem like this is an emotional response to some witless person's rant it goes beyond emotion.
We teach our children that everything is theirs to plunders and take without remorse then we teach them greed and a lack of respect that will not serve them well as adults.
We implant in our children the harvest first and worry about the over all effect later.We teach them that the future of a population of wild trout or any precious natural resource is not important.
Sad isn't it?
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