No-Fishing Hook Baited for Walden Pond

CONCORD, Mass. — The peaceful woods and clear waters lure Joseph Sevigny, with his fishing poles and 12-foot boat, to Walden Pond dozens of times a year. He tosses back the bass, but the trout often become dinner.

It’s a relaxing ritual enjoyed by countless others at the watering hole made famous by transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau, an angler himself.

But a campaign is on to reel in the fishermen. The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have petitioned the state to ban fishing at Walden as part of the group’s new anti-fishing crusade.

Even though Thoreau fished on the 60-acre pond, PETA folks say the animal-lover would have supported the ban.

“I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect,” Thoreau wrote in “Walden,” published in 1854.

For years, the international animal-rights group has fought against fishing, arguing that fish feel pain and suffer greatly after being caught.

“Just imagine swimming through the water and all they see is the bait,” said Dawn Carr, the coordinator of the campaign. “By the time they see the hook, it’s too late. They’ve already impaled themselves.”

The organization, which has 500,000 members worldwide and 16,000 in Massachusetts, plans to ask parks across America to ban fishing. But the campaign is being spawned here at Walden, where the conservation movement began with Thoreau nearly 150 years ago.

“I really think the PETA people are wacky,” said Sevigny, 50, of Melrose.

The pond, 16 miles northwest of Boston, and its surrounding woods were given to the state in 1922. Today, about 500,000 people a year swim, fish, picnic and hike here.

State environmental officials said they have no intention of banning fishing there. The deed to Walden Pond clearly spells out that fishing will be allowed, said Susan Hamilton, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Management.

PETA appealed last month to then-Gov. William F. Weld, himself an angler, asking him to step in and institute a ban. PETA insists that Thoreau would have wanted the pond he loved to be a sanctuary for all wildlife.

Thoreau did have a respect for all living creatures, said Tom Blanding, a Thoreau scholar and Concord resident.

“But for them to represent this as an absolute attitude on his part is to take things out of the literary context,” Blanding said. “To adopt him as an advocate for their position perhaps is out of proportion in a way.”

The very notion of a fishing ban was enough to make one Walden fisherman flounder for words to equal his contempt.

“Why don’t they ban walking here?” shouted the man, who wouldn’t give his name but said he has been fishing on Walden for all of his 70 years. “They might as well ban swimming.”