When Media Gets the Science Wrong We All Suffer

I was dismayed by a recent news story on CTV on the escape of farm fish into native fish waters. I was dismayed by: 1) the ecological impacts of this accident; and 2) the incomplete and inaccurate reporting.

Misleading Reporting by CTV        

In late December 2019, a fire at the Mowi fish farm in BC waters near Port Hardy resulted in the escape of over twenty thousand Atlantic salmon. The news story by the CTV media proved biased, incomplete and erroneous—and ultimately dangerous.

CTV reported that “environmentalists and indigenous groups” were concerned that the escaped Atlantic salmon “presents ecological and environmental risks to an already fragile wild salmon population.” But CTV failed to verify or refute these opinions with evidence-based statements by environmental scientists: government or academics with real expertise and authority.

CTV did talk to a “so-called” expert to counter the position of the environmentalists: a vet (Dr. Hugh Mitchell), who works for the fish farm: “[Atlantic salmon] are brought up on prepared fish pellets from since they start feeding …They don’t know how to forage. They don’t know how to find rivers and reproduce. They get eaten by predators or they die of starvation after they escape.” (see below for proof against this). A vet does not have the expertise of a fish biologist or oceanographer / ecologist or geneticist—all of who would better understand the potential impact of released exotic species to native species. CTV ended its story with a remark by the managing director of Mowi who said, “Data would suggest there’s a very low risk to the [Atlantic] salmon making it to any rivers and an even lower risk of them establishing successful populations within the BC environment.”

Where was this data to prove the Mowi director’s claim? CTV provided no substantiation or valid refutation; nor did CTV provide a more robust inquiry into other potential risks such as impact of disease. Why weren’t unbiased authorities at DFO, UBC, Uvic, or Simon Fraser University consulted for their expertise instead of a vet who works for the aquaculture industry?

Other News Reporting

The Vancouver Sun, which also covered this story, showed more balance in its reporting. However, the in its DFO reaction, the Sun did not address the issue directly: “Among the feedback the federal government has received through early consultations on the legislation is a need for a more effective risk management framework and support for Indigenous involvement and rights in the sector.”

The Georgia Straight used the right word—claimed—to describe Mowi’s unsubstantiated statements: “The company claimed that the escaped fish are easy prey because they are ‘unaccustomed to living in the wild, and thus unable to forage for their own food.’” The Straight also balanced that claim with another by Ernest Alfred of the ‘Ngamis First Nation and videographer and wild-salmon advocate Tavis Campbell, who suggested that the presence of Atlantic salmon in ocean water “presents a serious threat to native Pacific salmon through transfer of pathogens and other associated risks”. While The Straight did not follow through with scientific verification, they provided relevant historic precedence: “After a larger number of Atlantic salmon escaped from a Washington state fish farm near Bellingham in 2017, these species were found as far away as the Saanich Inlet and Harrison River.” Hardly the weaklings described by Mowi and Mitchell.

Global News provided a historic examination of the August 2017 net pens collapse in the waters off northwest Washington to demonstrate the seriousness of the potential impact: “Up to 263,000 invasive Atlantic salmon escaped into Puget Sound, raising fears about the impact on native Pacific salmon runs. The incident inspired Washington state to introduce legislation that would phase out marine farming of non-native fish by 2022. Groups like the Pacific Salmon Foundation have called for the B.C. and federal governments to do the same in Canada.”

Declining Pacific Wild Salmon

Wild Pacific salmon have been declining for decades off the BC coast and streams, according to DFO. A genetic study reported in the journal Conservation Letters suggests that sockeye salmon returns have dropped by three-quarters in the Skeena River over the last century. Human interference is primarily responsible, which includes habitat destruction, diversions for agriculture and hydro-power, over-fishing, and climate change. Habitat destruction—both quantity and quality—has occurred mainly through logging, road construction, urban development, mining, agriculture and recreation.

Added to that list is the aquaculture industry that uses Atlantic salmon, an exotic to the Pacific Ocean. A recent study conducted by the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative (SSHI) revealed that the piscine reovirus (PRV) found in farmed Atlantic salmon is linked to disease in Pacific Chinook salmon. The SSHI is an initiative made up of scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), Genome B.C., and the Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF).

The findings show that the same strain of PRV, known to cause heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) in farmed Atlantic salmon, is causing Chinook salmon to develop jaundice-anemia, a condition that ruptures red blood cells, and causes organ failure in the fish. The disease could pose a serious threat to wild salmon migrating past open-net fish farms in coastal waters in B.C.

Concerns about the decline of Pacific salmon after the Big Bar landslide in the Fraser River near Kamloops have prompted scientists to suggest this could result in the extinction of multiple salmon runs by 2020. The federal Liberal government has pledged to transition BC’s open-net pen salmon farms to closed inland containment systems by 2025.

All this corroborates the serious risk of Atlantic salmon farming. Accidents must be expected. They always occur. Risk analysis must include the certainty of this inevitability—just as water engineers must account for 100-year storms, which do happen.

Need for Better Risk Management (Type I and Type II Errors in Risk Assessment) 

The scientific method relies on accurately measuring certainty and therefore reliably predicting risk. This means accounting for all biases and errors within an experiment or exploration. In my work as a field scientist and environmental consultant representing a client, we often based our formal hypotheses in statistics, which considered two types of error: Type I and Type II errors. Type I errors are false positives: a researcher states that a specific relationship exists when in fact it does not. This is akin to an alarm sounding when there’s no fire. Type II errors are false negatives: the researcher states that no relationship occurs when in fact it does. This is akin to not sounding an alarm when a fire is blazing.

The reason why remarks made by vet Mitchell and Mowi are so dangerous is because they make assumptions that are akin to not sounding an alarm when there is a fire; they are committing a Type II error. In risk assessment, this is dangerous. In news reporting, this is irresponsible.

When reporting on science-related issues with associated risk, media must ultimately seek out evidence-based science through scientists with relevant knowledge (e.g. an ecologist—not an economist or a vet—for an environmental issue). It is fine to start with claim and position; but science reporting must conclude with fact and truth.

Nina Munteanu is a Canadian ecologist / limnologist and novelist. She is co-editor of Europa SF and currently teaches writing courses at George Brown College and the University of Toronto. Visit www.ninamunteanu.ca for the latest on her books. Nina’s bilingual “La natura dell’acqua / The Way of Water” was published by Mincione Edizioni in Rome. Her non-fiction book “Water Is…” by Pixl Press (Vancouver) was selected by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times ‘Year in Reading’ and was chosen as the 2017 Summer Read by Water Canada. Her novel “A Diary in the Age of Water” will be released by Inanna Publications (Toronto) in May 2020.

The Little Rouge in Winter: Up-Close and Personal

Little Rouge woodland

It had been a while since I’d visited the Little Rouge woodland. After returning early last fall from a trip to see the magnificent old-growth forest in British Columbia, I went back to my teaching at the University of Toronto and nursed my broken ankle (received not in the wilderness of ancient forests but during a mishap at a garden party!). I hobbled in a boot and used a cane to get around the city. As much as I longed to see my favourite woodland, I’d wisely decided not to venture into the rough uneven ground of the forest—until I could walk without a cane.

It was a brisk January day in winter, when I finally returned to the Little Rouge, ready to scramble down its banks for treasure. The Little Rouge was partially iced over as water rushed clear downstream. Water gurgled under the ice, dislodging some into moving islands. I watched—mesmerized—as the water carried one large ice drift that cracked and groaned until it piled onto another ice sheet downstream. More water gurgled in swirling patterns beneath the ice like a living watercolour.

Patterns on cedar log

Inspired, I decided to get up-close and personal with my favourite woodland and search the winter forest for things unseen. On first inspection, the forest lay draped in the browns and greys of winter, dusted by pockets of snow and ice. The trees were bare and gave me a clear view into the heart of the woodland and its rust-coloured monochrome of dead and decaying leaves and litter.

I focused on the forest floor and on nearby trees and shrubs for hidden gifts. One fallen cedar log revealed swirling impressionistic patterns of wood grain, dusted with moss and lichen.

Embedded in the ice of the litter-strewn path, I saw a half-eaten Black Walnut shell—likely dropped there by a squirrel. I found other seeds, dropped in a cedar stand amid a bed of leaves. On close inspection, the leaves revealed a multitude of colours, shades, shapes and textures. Blue, gold, red, and yellow popped amid the ubiquitous brown.

Moss hiding under leaves

When I poked at the leaves, I found surprising rewards beneath. Pockets of bright green mosses. Islands of young moss colonized the large granite rocks placed along the path. Mosses thrive in the wet winter and spring. Even when covered in snow, moss continues its growth cycle, usually in the leafy gametophyte stage. When the winter is moderate, like it is near Toronto, sporophyte structures can already appear on stalks that hold a capsule full of spores.  In the spring the capsules release spores that can each create a new moss individual.

Many twigs strewn on the leaf-covered forest floor were covered in grey-green lichen with leaf-like, lobes. On close inspection, the lichen thallus contained abundant cup-shaped fruiting bodies. These lichen were most likely Physchia stellaris, common and widespread in Ontario that typically pioneers on the bark of twigs—especially of poplars, and alders.

Physchia stellari lichen with fruiting bodies on a twig

A lichen is actually a complex symbiotic association of two or more fungi and algae. The algae in lichens (called phycobiont or photobiont) photosynthesize and the fungus (mycobiont) provides protection for the photobiont. Both the algae and fungus absorb water, minerals, and pollutants from the air, through rain and dust. In sexual reproduction, the mycobiont produces fruiting bodies, often cup-shaped, called apothecia that release ascospores. The spores must find a compatible photobiont to create a lichen.

Lichens also reproduce asexually in two ways. One way is through fragmentation; a portion of the thallus simply breaks off and starts a new colony. The second way is through vegetative structures called soredia—algal cells surrounded by fungal filaments or hyphae—which form in the thallus. In the right conditions, they burst through the surface of the thallus and as propagules (such as a stem cuttings, portions of root, seeds or spores) can propagate more of themselves. A lichen might also develop a specific vegetative extension called isidia that fragments as a propagule to create more lichen.

The sun was setting by the time I made my way out of the Little Rouge woodland, soul refreshed and smiling in my many discoveries.

Nina is a Canadian scientist and novelist. She worked for 25 years as an environmental consultant in the field of aquatic ecology and limnology, publishing papers and technical reports on water quality and impacts to aquatic systems. Nina has written over a dozen eco-fiction, science fiction and fantasy novels. An award-winning short story writer, and essayist, Nina currently lives in Toronto where she teaches writing at the University of Toronto and George Brown College. Her non-fiction book “Water Is...”—a scientific study and personal journey as limnologist, mother, teacher and environ- mentalist—was picked by Margaret Atwood in the New York Times as 2016 ‘The Year in Reading’. Nina’s most recent novel “A Diary in the Age of Water”— about four generations of women and their relationship to water in a rapidly changing world—will be released in May 2020 by Inanna Publications. www.NinaMunteanu.ca; www.NinaMunteanu.me