Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder, Louv, Richard [best free novels txt] 📗

What’s the appropriate age to begin a child’s fishing experience? “Around five years old, but generally not before,” says Hugh Marx, who offers a kids’ fishing clinic at a lake near San Diego. “In the beginning, parents of small children do the fishing and kids do the reeling.” Don’t start a child out with sophisticated fishing techniques and gear, he advises. A child introduced to fishing this way may get so frustrated that fishing loses its appeal. The best policy is let them start with a cane pole, not a hundred-dollar rod and reel. “Let children appreciate the simplicity of fishing. At least if they become angling elitists later on, they can’t say they were always one.”

Begin with the non-glamour fish, he suggests. Crappie, carp, bullhead catfish—and most important, bluegills and other types of sunfish—any pan fish that make a kid’s heart jolt when the bobber goes under. Bend down the barbs on the hooks for safety: this also makes it easier to release fish unharmed. Speaking for the fish, I recommend catch-and-release, although taking a few fish home to clean and eat can be a valuable lesson about the source of food.

For my older son, Jason, fishing has value chiefly as a way to spend time with his family, in nature. But Matthew definitely has the fishing gene. He started his angling career at age three, fishing in the humidifier in his bedroom. Several years ago, I asked him to help me with an article about fishing and kids. The piece was published in the Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers. His advice is still good:

Fishing Tips for Parents from Matthew Louv (age 12):

1. Fish with your kid.

2. Let your kids go fishing, even if you don’t want to take them.

3. Let your kids buy supplies and tackle. That’s half the fun of fishing.

4. If your kids are young, take them to a place where fish are easy to catch and are small.

5. Let kids fish as long as they want. Let them get obsessed.

6. Let the kids go off and do their own thing. It can get to be incredibly annoying and/or frustrating if there’s an adult standing over them barking orders.

7. At least pretend to act excited when your kid catches a fish. It can quickly ruin a day of fishing if the kid feels you don’t want to be there, and he’s just dragging you down.

8. If you know how to fish, don’t give your kid too much unsolicited advice, although it can be helpful if the kid is young.

9. Let your kid teach you how to fish; participate in the fishing. This can be quality bonding time.

10. Remember that fishing and spending time with family is just as, or more important than, homework.

11. Have fun; that’s the entire point of going fishing in the first place.

12. And whatever you do, DON’T LET YOUR KID THROW ROCKS IN THE WATER!

Today’s families are more likely to be confronted with moral questions, ones seldom asked in past decades, about children’s traditional hunting-and-gathering interaction with nature. These questions come with the territory of the third frontier—and reflect the changing relationship between humans and other animals. In 2000, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) declared fishing “the final frontier of animal rights.” The organization has targeted its anti-fishing campaign specifically at children. Activists have handed out anti-fishing fliers to children as they left schools; others protested at a Brooklyn children’s fishing derby, holding up signs that effectively accused the children of being killers. In 2000, Dawn Carr, anti-fishing campaign coordinator for PETA, and Gill the Fish, a six-foot-tall piscatorial partner dressed in a fish-suit, attempted to visit dozens of schools around the country. “Only one school let us in,” reported Carr. Undeterred, she and Gill stationed themselves just beyond school property. There, they passed out literature and told kids about the evils of fishing.

One PETA anti-fishing commercial features young Justin Aligata, who is a vegetarian, animal rights activist, and Boy Scout. “Scouting has taught me that Scouts should not harm the environment or animals in it. That is why I don’t think there should be a fishing merit badge,” he says. “Scouting is all about doing what is right and making a positive difference in the world—that is exactly what I am doing by helping PETA speak up for fish.”

Even without PETA’s opposition, fishing is slipping as a pastime among young people. Some 44 million Americans still fish regularly, but the average age of anglers is rising, and the fishing tackle industry is concerned about a drop in some states in the number of young people fishing. “Every kid grows up with a mountain bike; it used to be a fishing pole,” says Sports Afield editor John Atwood.

Hunting is another traditional way that young people first interacted with nature. In 1997, states issued approximately 15 million hunting licenses, about a million less than in the previous decade. (Interestingly, women are responsible for maintaining hunting’s numerical viability; the number of women hunters doubled in the 1990s, to 2.6 million.) In 1998, after a spurt of school violence by young people (some using hunting rifles), essayist Lance Morrow wrote, “Sometimes a society makes a tectonic shift, some great half-conscious collective decision. That happened with smoking, which was once, remember, a glamorous ritual of romance and adulthood. . . . It may be happening now with hunting.”

Yes, there are alternative hands-on ways for children to experience nature, but when people who love nature argue for the end of hunting and fishing, without suggesting options equaling or surpassing the importance of those experiences to children, they should be careful what they wish for. By any measure, the impact of consumptive outdoor sports on nature pales in comparison to the destruction of habitat by urban sprawl and pollution. Remove hunting and fishing from human activity, and we lose many of the voters and organizations that now work against the destruction