Nothing wrong with spear fishing. If anything else, it is MUCH MORE conservation minded than angling.
While most people like to think catch and release has 100% survival rate, in fact, it does not. There is always some mortality no matter how quickly or how carefully we release the fish. Some fish will ALWAYS suffer deep hooks, regardless of bait or lure used. Some fish will ALWAYS suffer additional injuries, such as hooked in the eye, the gill or sometimes even through the skull. Those are all potentially detrimental to fish's long term survival.
So if someone wishes to go out to harvest some fish for consumption (which is 100% legal if done according to regulation and limits), this person may have to sort through a number of fish, and in the process injure a number of fish, before the right fish can be harvested. Undersize fish, overslot fish, bycatch...etc. In a long run, it equates to a lot of unnecessary dead fish.
In spear fishing, there is much greater selection process. If it is the wrong species, you don't shoot. If it is too small, you don't shoot. If you can't get a clear shot, you don't shoot. It is the same with hunting. The ethics in spear fishing is actually much, much higher than harvest by angling.
Someone who harvest conservatively makes more ethical decisions than an anglers, and can be afforded more opportunity to make those ethical decisions.
Someone who is ignorant of conservation and ethics, regardless of angling or spear fishing, will be equally damaging to the natural resource.
So get off your pedestal and come back down to earth...
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Now...to electrofishing...
Electrofishing doesn't necessarily cook the fish. If it does, you don't know much about it and should not comment. Many natural resource agencies use electrofishing. It is used as a specimen collection tool. This tool is used to collect live specimens for population studies, to collect live specimens to collect live stocks for brood stock, or to collect live specimens to collect eggs and sperm for stocking purpose. Rarely is it used to "cook" the fish for collection purpose. Once the fish is "fried" it is not very useful for characterization or identification.
Electrofishing for consumption...maybe it occurs in some backwater redneck regions...but I don't know any provinces that allows it...but maybe some states allows it?
