The main problem with organising an attack strategy is apathy, there is far too much of the " They wont ban fishing, It'll never happen" mentality amongst anglers.
There was a similar debate on AnglersNet awhile back. One idiot's reply to the question of what we should do was " I think that we should just keep our heads down and not draw attention to ourselves, then maybe the antis will go away and leave us alone.
It is only now that anglers are starting to realise that the antis pose a real threat to our sport.
Graham is right on the mark in his opening post when he says that it is time we went on the attack instead of always being on the defensive.
The US group PETA have decided to target fishing in the UK because they see us as a soft target with a government (which ever party is in power) as being extremely ease to influence. Which is the reason for the house of commons bill to ban hunting with dogs, and its no good jumping up and saying "Bloody labour government " remember it was a free vote with no party line to tow, just as many Tories as labour members voted for the ban.
The question is what can we do?
We need to be putting our case across to Local and National government, the Media and most importantly the Public.
How do we do it?
What is the most powerful tool we have?
You're staring at it. We can use the power of the Internet, but we have to be united in our actions and we need to be organised.
Most large organisations such as media, council's etc have their own servers for e-mail so lets use this to our own advantage by blitzing them with e-mail.
Someone on another thread said there was an anti angling program on BBC radio 5. So we post the facts on this and every other fishing site and blitz them with e-mail not just a few but thousands and on a global scale and every 24 hours until we receive a satisfactory reply. It can be done, it should be done and we could do it. It would screw up their systems on which they rely for news feeds from umpteen press agencies and media suppliers. We should blitz the presenter, the program, the station, BBC central and the Director General.
Recently a local BBC radio station held a poll on their web site asking Do you think angling is cruel. When someone posted it on AnglersNet the vote was 55% saying Yes, then the anglers from all sites began to vote within an hour the vote was 98.9% No vote. After a couple of hours the poll was pulled off the BBC site. That's the power we have when organised.
Bombard national Radio, TV and Newspapers who have used anti angling material in the past, asking for their position on the matter.
We must make our presence felt.
Write to the schools in your area asking then to invite you along should PETA or another anti group ask to talk to the kids, so as to offer a balanced view, or at least ask to go in after them to expose their lies.
Do you know of any teachers indoctrinating children against angling? If so post details on the sites then blitz the school/collage and local education authority angain requesting information on their policy
Local and national elections are coming up in June, ask all your local councilors and MPs, what there views are, ask if they are aware of the benefits anglers have on the environment, did they vote for a ban on hunting? How would they vote if there were calls to ban fishing? If they are against fishing post a message on every angling site telling everyone to blitz e-mail the person and their party.
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