Angling for endangered fish: conservation problem or conservation action?

Recreational angling has been implicated in population declines of some marine and freshwater fish, but this activity is rarely considered as a threat or even halted when endangered species are targeted. Indeed, in some cases, anglers are drawn to fish for rare or endangered species. Conservation-oriented behaviours such as catch-and-release are often practiced voluntarily due to the ethics of anglers, yet even in these cases, some fishing mortality occurs. Nonetheless, there are many indirect conservation benefits associated with recreational angling. Here, we present a series of case-studies and consider whether catch-and-release angling for Correspondence: