Live bait fishing involves catching small fish, worms, and invertebrates to use as live attractants, with welfare implications for bait animals that are rarely considered.
Bait animal welfare sits at the intersection of angling traditions and emerging evidence on fish and invertebrate sentience. Hooking a live minnow through the back — a standard bait fishing technique — causes tissue damage and distress to an animal with functional nociceptors. Bait worms severed into pieces experience damage to nervous tissue that has been associated with pain-like responses. The welfare of bait animals is essentially never considered in angling regulations, which focus on target species.