People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has urged the Orissa government to impose ban on deep sea commercial fishing so that environment degradation, risk to human health and animal suffering could be checked. PETA senior campaign Coordinator Nikunj Sharma opined that the organisation has decided to write to the chief ministers of all the coastal states to impose the ban. He also said that PETA will ask the governments to make an alternative arrangement for the rehabilitation of fishermen engaged in deep sea fishing.
According to Sharma PETA has prepared a report based on first hand investigation, scientific studies and research conducted both by government and non government organisations. PETA report states that the India’s fishing industry violates laws, endangers human health and causes animal suffering on a massive scale. Sharma informed that deep sea fishing was going on during the breeding season, violating the ban imposed by the government, and sharks and dolphins were being killed for their meat and oil even though they were protected by law.
Sharma expressed that commercial fishing devastated ecosystems adding that the deep water life forms hauled up in the nets or crushed by the nets wheels could take decades to recover. He told that fish caught in hooks or dragged from the oceans depth experienced severe pain and appealed people to avoid them.
