A threatened loggerhead sea turtle died recently after getting hooked by fishing lines twice in one week at Gulf State Park.
PETA sent a letter to Alabama State Parks Director Greg Lein, requesting a fishing ban at the park. They also asked him to consider extending the ban to all state parks.
PETA noted that fishing kills at least 4,600 sea turtles in U.S. coastal waters annually after they get caught in nets or are accidentally hooked on bait lines. The necropsy revealed that two fishhooks had perforated the turtle’s intestine and that a third “was anchored at the entrance to the [turtle’s] stomach.”
“Gulf State Park should provide at least threatened and non-target animals with a safe haven,” says PETA President Ingrid Newkirk.
“PETA is asking Lein to protect all the park’s wildlife, from trout to turtles, by making fishing off-limits,” the letter continued. “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 have many nerve endings. It should be no more acceptable to harm them than it is to harm any other living, feeling beings.”
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is the largest animal rights organization in the world with more than 9 million members. PETA opposes speciesism, a human-supremacist worldview. Their motto states, “Animals are not ours to experiment on, eat, wear, use for entertainment, or abuse in any other way.”
PETA’s letter to Lein follows.
October 20, 2021
Greg Lein Director of Alabama State Parks Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources
Dear Mr. Lein:
PETA entities have more than 9 million members and supporters globally, including thousands across Alabama. I’m writing to you on behalf of PETA U.S., the largest animal rights organization in the world, in response to news that a threatened loggerhead turtle recently died eight days after he had accidentally been hooked (for the second time that week) and rescued at Gulf State Park Pier. While we applaud park security and naturalists who helped rescue this turtle—two fishhooks had also perforated his small intestine and a third hook was in the entrance to his stomach—we have an urgent request to get ahead of this problem: Please ban fishing at Gulf State Park to protect turtles, fish, and other wildlife.
Every year, anglers worldwide leave behind a trail of victims that includes turtles, birds, and other animals who sustain debilitating injuries after swallowing fishhooks or becoming entangled in fishing line. Wildlife rehabilitators say that abandoned, lost, or discarded fishing gear is one of the greatest threats to aquatic animals and makes up about 10% of all ocean litter. It damages marine habitats and entangles marine animals, leading to injury, illness, suffocation, starvation, and death. Researchers estimate that fishing kills at least 4,600 sea turtles in U.S. coastal waters annually, because they become caught in nets or hooked on bait lines. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, bycatch in fishing gear is the greatest threat to loggerhead turtles worldwide, and a 2010 study estimated that as many as 1.5 million sea turtles were caught in fisheries worldwide over an 18-year period.
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 have many nerve endings. It should be no more acceptable to harm them than it is to harm any other living, feeling beings. As more information on fish sensitivity and pain receptivity has been in the news lately, yet another benefit to a ban is that fewer of these sensitive animals would be suffocated, gutted while still alive, or hooked and thrown back, only to die slowly and painfully from the resulting injuries and stress.
I hope that in light of both this recent hideous incident and the ongoing dangers that angling poses to turtles and other wildlife species, you’ll impose a ban on fishing at Gulf State Park and consider extending it to all state parks. Thank you for your consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Very truly yours,
Ingrid Newkirk President
