FISHING World was disturbed to hear reports last week that a prominent Australian hardware chain appeared to have an “anti-recreational fishing” policy.
We were alerted to this by a posting on fishing blog site We Fish that had claimed managers at Bunnings retail hardware stores had been instructed not to support any groups associated with killing animals i.e. angling and hunting groups.
This story had also been receiving a lot of traffic via social media sites such as Facebook.
Fishing World contacted We Fish for further clarification and was informed the site had spoken to managers of three Bunnings outlets who claimed they’d been instructed not to support groups associated with killing any animal of any sort.
Fisho contacted the Bunnings head office in Melbourne where a spokesperson familiar with the issue informed us Bunnings definitely did not have an anti-fishing policy and the story had stemmed from a misunderstanding that had been resolved.
In a statement from Bunnings, Managing Director John Gillam told Fisho “Our stores nationally provide support to a wide variety of local community groups, including fishing clubs. This has been the case for decades and during the past six months we’ve supported over 45 clubs.”
“It is absolute nonsense to suggest that we will be or are stopping our support of fishing clubs.”
Fisho also notes that the We Fish blogsite has updated its posting to recognise that Bunnings has moved to resolve this issue.
