Electrofishing in the context of "Fishing technique"

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are often caught as wildlife from the natural environment (freshwater or marine), but may also be caught from stocked bodies of water such as ponds, canals, park wetlands and reservoirs. Fishing techniques include trawling, longlining, jigging, hand-gathering, spearing, netting, angling, shooting and trapping, as well as more destructive and often illegal techniques such as electrocution, blasting and poisoning.

The term fishing is also used more broadly to include catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as crustaceans (shrimp/lobsters/crabs), shellfish, cephalopods (octopus/squid) and echinoderms (starfish/sea urchins). The term is not normally applied to harvesting fish raised in controlled cultivations (fish farming). Nor is it normally applied to hunting aquatic mammals, where terms like whaling and sealing are used instead.

Destructive fishing practices are fishing practices which easily result in irreversible damage to habitats and the sustainability of the fishery ecosystems. Such damages can be caused by direct physical destruction of the underwater landform and vegetation, overfishing (especially of keystone species), indiscriminate killing/maiming of aquatic life, disruption of vital reproductive cycles, and lingering water pollution.

Many fishing techniques can be destructive if used inappropriately, but some practices (such as blasting, electrocution and poisoning) are particularly likely to result in irreversible damage to the ecosystem. These practices are mostly, though not always, illegal (see also illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing), and even where they are illegal, regulations are often inadequately enforced.