Catch-and-release fishing is promoted as conservation-friendly but raises welfare questions about hooking injury, air exposure, and handling stress, with best practices reducing harm significantly.
Catch-and-release fishing occupies complex welfare territory. It reduces one harm, fish death, while creating others including hooking injury, physiological exhaustion, and handling stress. The welfare calculus depends entirely on how the release is conducted. Best practices including barbless hooks, minimal air exposure, wet hands, and water temperature awareness can reduce welfare harm substantially. Anglers who practice responsible catch-and-release are engaging in a form of welfare mitigation; those who handle fish carelessly may cause more suffering than a clean kill would have.