SHOULD WE EAT THESE FISH - A SITUATIONAL ETHICS SURVEY OF AFS MEMBERS

Many professional societies have established ethical guidelines or standards for their membership that include ramifications of actions outside those practices. While the American Fisheries Society has a ''Code of Practices and Ethics,'' those are necessarily broad and do not address specific situations. In this paper, we present the findings of a survey of AFS members. The survey presented 10 situations, described corresponding action, and asked respondents ff the action taken was ethical. A statistically significant consensus was present in all but one of the situations, but only one situation evoked a unanimous response. Responses to several of the situations were closely divided and indicated that those topics might benefit from further discussion among members of the AFS.