We do our best at The Fisherman to stay up-to-date on the latest, greatest technological advances in the angling world. Every year our team visits the big ICAST event in Florida where new gear is introduced, and we follow that up with additional conversations with manufacturer reps, while attending regional “dealers” shows for an inside look at what local tackle shops are buying for each new season.
And now for something completely different, from the opposite end of normal. The anti-fishing crusaders are also attempting to stay ahead of the angling curve, with the folks from the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) issuing a news alert on the final day of March about its new RoboFish, an autonomous AI-powered fish robot with scissor-like teeth that can cut through fishing lines.
Idle hands in the devil’s workshop, or perhaps a devilish joke on PETA’s behalf? It was after all the day prior to April Fools Day.
“The high-tech halibut uses advanced sonar and image recognition to navigate and identify its targets, and the eco-friendly design enables it to run on ocean currents and self-charging solar scales,” said Nicole Perreira in the email blast, adding “Based on discreetly recorded month-over-month data, the number of fish caught at the Santa Monica pier has plummeted since the futuristic flounder’s deployment there.”
With roughly three weeks before New Jersey’s summer flounder kickoff on May 4, I began to wonder if I should be concerned about my beloved bucktails. In undercover interviews with Santa Monica anglers, PETA confirmed that RoboFish works as intended. “I lost three lines in one afternoon! Something kept slicing through them, and I never saw what it was,” said one aggravated angler. “It’s like the fish are fighting back!” complained another.
“Fish don’t want to be impaled and dragged from their homes any more than any human does, and that’s why the innovative RoboFish is shifting the tide for marine life,” says PETA’s Amy Bousquet, adding “Fishing is about to get a lot more frustrating, so PETA recommends that commercial and hobbyist fishers consider switching to nonviolent outdoor activities such as photography, gardening, or bird watching.”
A “hobbyist fisher”? For what it’s worth, a fisher (pekania pennanti) is a forest-dwelling, carnivorous mammal and member of the weasel family, a native to North America which ranges from the boreal forest in Canada to the northern United States. Not sure if these cat-like critters have hobbies, but I do know their pelts are highly coveted by furriers. But I digress.
Bousquet went on to say their national launch will focus on fishing hotspots, including the Gulf Coast and New England’s fishing communities, but they also claimed via email to be working on a more powerful model that can snip open lobster traps. And then I thought of the Nigerian prince who emailed looking to help him get $1 million out of his country and into my account. I was about to click on that email link when I decided to look up the Nigerian dollar (it’s called the Naira by the way), which is worth roughly $650 U.S. dollars; Prince Abubakar wanted me to wire him $1,000 to facilitate that $1M transfer. Close one, huh?
So it was at this point, after reading through PETA’s full press release, that I finally mustered the courage to click on the embedded link in the email that did in fact say PETA was having a little April Fools Day fun at my expense. “Of course, PETA isn’t actually sending supersonic, line-cutting fish into the ocean,” PETA wrote in their landing page, adding “But that doesn’t mean fishing isn’t cruel.”
What’s cruel is using the word fisher to refer to we the People who Eat Tasty Animals. A fisher is after all, by definition, a weasel word. In any event, my bucktails are safe, for now.
