People taking away resources meant for people who actually need them just because they feel like it are assholes.

another charge slapped on for lying to law enforcement

Context for Germany: You’re allowed to lie to law enforcement.

In Germany we have a law enforcement level below the police called “Ordnungsamt” (I’m not going to try to translate that). They are in charge of these minor misdemeanors (like parking wrong, littering, speeding, etc.) It’s entirely possible that their patrols randomly check dog owners, but personally I’ve never heard of that.

Thanks for catching that. I’m sure there must be a fish-specific term that’s eluding me.

I know of them in Germany. But the duckduckgo image search reveals that they exist in many places.

Reasons for a license to fish (from a German perspective and with common sense):

• You want people who fish to know when they can and cannot fish due to the fish’s [Edit: re pro]creation periods.
• You want people to know which kinds of fish they should and should not catch, in general.
• You want people to know how big a certain kind of fish needs to be before it can be extracted.
• You want a general overview of the number of people fishing in a general area to monitor overfishing.

License to have a dog:

• Costs a certain amount of money each month. This funds public cleaning of dog poop and free dog poop bags.

License for a GMRS radio:

• To prevent too many people from crowding in the same channel.
• To be able to identify assholes who jam a channel with their broadcasts.

License for biking:

• To know the rules of the road