Whats your thoughts on using whitebait as live food.

[Insect Direct]

Good question.

Its not the using them as food that bugs me as such, more the waste of a native fish thats in decline.

Guppies are captive bred, could do the same with natives I suppose. Better off with goldfish though

[alanmin4304]

The reason the Government allows a whitebait season is that they are the collective of a bunch of politicians. You wouldn't buy a second hand car from a politician so don't expect them to be interested in much more than being re elected. I am sure that they have to pass an IQ test to stand for parliament (and get less than 30). When this Government allowed cats in food premises they passed the IQ test in my opinion.

[owen]

I'm against fishing for whitebait as food for people or animals, especially since its illegal to catch and eat under-size trout(which are the aquatic equivalent of stoats IMO)

But if there is an upside of whitebaiting its that native fish habitat is more likely to be protected. Sadly most people only value them for food.

What really grinds my gears, is that commercial eelers are allowed to catch endangered longfin eels on conservation land

[Insect Direct]

What really grinds my gears, is that commercial eelers are allowed to catch endangered longfin eels on conservation land

What the :roll: sadly it doesnt surprise me though.

Time the govt understands that protecting our natives is going to have a much greater benefit to our country in the long. As apposed to the commercial gain of today.

[Stella]

If whitebait is endangered why does the government allow a whitebait season?

For much the same reason that alcohol and tobacco are legal, despite causing huge social and medical damage: history and voters.

If you think it not nice to use them as food then surely it is not nice to use guppies as food or any other living organism either! Enjoy your steak/fish dinner. I enjoy mine.

Ah but the difference lies in the origin. Whitebait are taken from nature with little regard to what is sustainable or even what whitebait do if they don't get fried. Each whitebaiter is fishing in competition with his neighbour to get the greater share of a limited natural resource which he does nothing to help sustain.

If I breed guppies or mealworms as live food, it is in my best interests to make sure the culture is self-sustaining.

When a natural resource is collectively owned it is almost doomed to be overharvested becasue of people's short-term selfish gain. This is known as the Tragedy of the Commons.

From Wikipedia:

The tragedy of the commons is a dilemma arising from the situation in which multiple individuals, acting independently, and solely and rationally consulting their own self-interest, will ultimately deplete a shared limited resource even when it is clear that it is not in anyone's long-term interest for this to happen. This dilemma was first described in an influential article titled "The Tragedy of the Commons," written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968.[1]

Central to Hardin's article is an example (first sketched in an 1833 pamphlet by William Forster Lloyd) of a hypothetical and simplified situation based on medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common parcel of land, on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's example, it is in each herder's interest to put the next (and succeeding) cows he acquires onto the land, even if the carrying capacity of the common is exceeded and it is temporarily or permanently damaged for all as a result. The herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group. If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the common will be depleted or even destroyed to the detriment of all.