Recreational angling affects hundreds of millions of fish annually, and welfare research has prompted significant changes in recommended catch-and-release practices.
Angling welfare sits at the intersection of contested sentience debates and observable stress responses: fish caught and released show elevated cortisol, altered swimming behaviour, and in some cases fail to recover from the capture stress. The welfare case for improved catch-and-release practice is strong — keeping fish in water during unhooking, minimising air exposure, and using barbless hooks demonstrably improves survival and recovery. Whether this reduces suffering depends on one's assessment of fish sentience, but precautionary welfare practice is warranted given the scale of angling globally.