Fish Stocking and Live Bait Reduction

This ask report considers interventions for stocked fish and fish used for bait.

Fish stocking is the practice of raising fish to be put into wild areas, such as rivers, to supplement the natural population. Bait fish are those caught to be used as bait for other fish. These two practices are commonly neglected within the animal ethics movement, despite there being potentially a comparable or even larger amount of animals affected by these two industries than by other animal-based industries that we have considered in previous research. This is heightened further as fish are one of our priority animals. Our speculative estimates are that a successful intervention for bait fish could save ~25 Welfare Points per animal, and for fish stocking ~23 Welfare Points per animal.

However, there seem to be, many weaknesses holding this intervention back. For bait fish, we argue that it is likely a government intervention would be required to reach a significant scale, and that would have very high costs. Counterfactual replaceability also seems to be an issue, as fish stocking seems to be already projected to get firmer regulations, and for baitfish in many western countries, strict regulations already apply. These industries also seem to be declining, and thus fewer animals are being produced--this could be a continuing trend.

Our preliminary research suggests that this intervention is somewhat promising, and we expect it to fall in the middle of the interventions we have considered. However, we believe that it is currently better to focus on issues where the populous of animals affected is rising, such as with dissolved oxygen levels for fish.

This report considers why we believe these interventions are middlingly promising, and also considers the crucial considerations involved.

Read the report

Ask reports

Our priority ask reports are focused on what are the particular improvements or changes that can be “asked” for from corporations, governments, or individuals. Going cage free, making dietary changes, regulating slaughter practices, and many other asks all serve as examples here. They are compared based on the strength of the idea (including the evidence base and estimated cost-effectiveness), limiting factors, execution difficulty, and externalities. All of these factors together could begin to suggest which asks might be the most effective when combined with a priority animal, country, and approach. However, these ask reports are short summaries of longer unpublished reports and, therefore, even if an ask looks promising this does not necessarily suggest that it will end up being a promising charity once paired with other elements and cross-compared to the other strongest possible charities. It just suggests that it is worth further and deeper investigation from our team. You can see our full planned research process here.

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