Environmental disasters and human activities:
Does the media see the connection?
An examination of the media coverage of Hurricane Mitch
and salmon fishery decline in the Pacific northwest

Wendy M. Knight*, Sylvia, M. Fallon, Carol Boggs, Anne Ehrlich, Paul Ehrlich, Claire Kremen November 23, 1999
Center for Conservation Biology Stanford University Stanford, California 94305

In recent years, human population size and human activities have risen in importance on the list of underlying causes that determine the severity of environmental disasters. The general public, however, often fails to see these causal connections. Part of the reason for this limited public knowledge could be that environmental connections are rarely explained by the media or by educators. The media, in particular, strongly influences public knowledge and opinion; thus, it is critical that journalists cover stories thoroughly and accurately.

We have taken a multi-pronged approach to helping enhance the coverage of connections by both the media and educators. First, we developed a resource paper entitled "Missing Connections" , that lists and explores the important causal connections among environmental events and human population size and activities. Second, we have analyzed the coverage of two environmental events by the print media, in order to evaluate the degree to which particular types of causal connections are highlighted or missed. Third, we are developing a website with resource links for journalists and educators to aid in presenting a fuller picture of the pertinent connections.

Here we review our analysis of media coverage of two recent major environmental events. The first is Hurricane Mitch, the massive hurricane that hit Central America in 1998. Second, we analyzed the media coverage of the ongoing decline of salmon stocks in the Pacific northwest. These two events differ in the time scale of their occurrence, which could have affected the type of coverage they received. By analyzing the news coverage of these two events, we hope to highlight successes and point out weaknesses in the coverage of environmental news, and thereby raise the consciousness of journalists. It is only through a clear understanding by the public of the underlying causal connections to environmental disasters that the magnitude of such disasters may be reduced through future policy changes. We first present the environmental connections associated with Hurricane Mitch and the salmon decline, how the media is currently covering these issues, and then provide suggestions of how media coverage of environmental issues could be improved.

We searched the 'General News Topics' section of Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe to examine the news coverage of Hurricane Mitch and Pacific northwest salmon declines. Lexis-Nexis is a searchable on-line news database that contains records of all articles in approximately 60 major newspapers from around the world (http://web.lexis-nexis.com/universe). In this report, we present an overview of the newspaper coverage of Hurricane Mitch for a sample two-month period from November 1, 1998 to December 31, 1998. We analyzed the coverage of salmon declines from January 1, 1998 to December 31, 1998.

Hurricane Mitch

Hurricane Mitch was a category 5 hurricane that affected much of the Atlantic basin including Central America, the Gulf of Mexico and southern Florida. The most extensive damage caused by the hurricane occurred in Honduras when Mitch first hit land on October 27, 1998.

Key connections

The key connections that we focused on are: climate change, land-use (including soil loss, land degradation, deforestation and loss of biodiversity), population size and related population issues such as food security, equity, hunger and disease. A thorough discussion of these topics is presented in the article, "Missing Connections".

Climate change

In recent years, there have been numerous reports of unusual weather patterns, record temperatures and, in particular, an increase in the intensity of tropical storms. These events, while termed 'natural', are likely exacerbated by an unnatural warming of the earth's atmosphere. The combustion of fossil fuels is the largest contributor to global warming. As the human enterprise continues to grow, greater fossil fuel emissions change the composition of Earth's atmospheric gases. The result is an increase in the average global surface temperature that in turn supports a larger amount of atmospheric water vapor. Higher temperatures and greater potential for precipitation may intensify the various weather patterns observed recently, including an increased frequency of hurricanes. It is therefore possible that the strength of the hurricane, if not the hurricane itself, was a product of human-induced climate change.

Land-Use Connections: Deforestation, land degradation, soil loss and loss of biodiversity

Even in a pristine state, the land in Central America could not absorb the amount of rainfall resulting from Hurricane Mitch. In the past, Honduras was home to some of the most biologically diverse tropical forests on earth. However, deforestation for various human land uses including agriculture and housing, has led to a devastating loss of these forests in modern times. Without the protection of the forests, the soil of Honduras is much more vulnerable to the negative impacts of heavy rainfall.

Over 70% of the population of Honduras is supported by the cash crop industry, largely bananas and coffee. This reliance upon agriculture has led to the replacement of native vegetation with plantations, which now dominate the landscape. Additionally, the enormous demand for agricultural products results in overcultivation of crops and consequently soil loss. Loss of top soil in agricultural landscapes and the deforestation of slopes, enhance the land's susceptibility to mudslides following large amounts of rain since there is nothing left to hold the soil in place.

Housing for the poor is restricted to sub-optimal areas unsuitable for agriculture and that are, for example, along rivers or on precarious hillsides. Unfortunately, these regions are also predisposed to flooding and landslides. Villages near rivers and on hillsides experienced most of the hurricane-related deaths.

The clearing of land for various human uses has also led to a general loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services. Forests provide a variety of ecosystem services including climate regulation and the control of soil erosion. Without vegetation in place to protect the land, the mudslides destroyed not only agriculture and housing, but also further damaged the area's already fragile ecosystems. Consequently, Honduras was prone to the massive landslides that killed thousands of people during the storm. Much of the destruction caused by Hurricane Mitch could have been avoided by following more rational land-use patterns, forest preservation policies and better soil conservation measures.

Overpopulation and equity

It is critical to identify the underlying cause of the land use problems addressed above. Overpopulation in rural Honduras has led to the intensive clearing of land for housing and agriculture. The people who built their homes unsafely along rivers and hillsides, and cleared forested land for homes and farms have nowhere else to go. The government cannot force people to move their homes to safer ground if there is no safer ground to offer. The needs of the growing population are greatly outnumbering the services, including area, that the land is able to provide.

Overpopulation is also affected by inequity. While always present, inequity becomes more evident in disasters when the poor frequently suffer disproportionately. In Honduras, as anywhere, the poorest people are forced to live in the most marginal conditions. It is the poor who have built makeshift homes on the hillsides and near rivers while those with more money often live in the more developed and structurally secure cities.

Inequity within Honduras mirrors the country's place within the global community. It is the second poorest country in the Western hemisphere and has a history of political instability and economic dependence on wealthier countries. This dependence is reflected in the control of Honduras' main income, the agricultural plantations, by foreign monopolies. Due to the agricultural devastation brought on by Hurricane Mitch, many foreign corporations stopped production in Honduras, leaving thousands of workers unemployed. With no prospect of employment, many citizens were left both with nowhere to live and nothing to eat.

Hunger, disease and food security

Effects of overpopulation were also evident in the aftermath of the storm, particularly in the form of hunger and disease. While hunger and disease are easy to identify, their connection with overpopulation is often overlooked. The pace at which disease spreads is a function of population density. Before the hurricane, the food supply in Honduras was not enough to feed the country's growing population. Approximately 70% of Honduras' agricultural production was destroyed. Because of the heavy agricultural bias towards the production of exportable cash crops, the crops that did survive the hurricane were not sufficient to provide for their nutritional needs. Not only did they not have food for themselves, but they lost their greatest source of income and were not able to compensate for food losses with imports from other countries.

Hurricane Mitch - Methods

Using Lexis-Nexis, we conducted three separate searches on newspaper articles written during a two month period (11/1/98 - 12/31/98) after the hurricane hit Central America. Our first search was for all comprehensive, general review articles on Hurricane Mitch that were over 1000 words. An article was considered to have made a 'connection' if it mentioned climate change, land-use issues (including soil loss, land degradation, deforestation or loss of biodiversity), population size, food security, equity, hunger or disease.

Our second search was for all writings by the public, such as letters to the editor and opinion pieces, in which Hurricane Mitch was the main subject and the writer made at least one connection. It is important to note that this search was not held to the same standards as the general review articles written by the news reporters. We expected reporters to make connections in their comprehensive articles, but we did not expect the public to be reviewing the incident as thoroughly. Therefore, writings by the public that did not make any connections were considered irrelevant and were not counted. The last search was for 'specialty' articles that made connections but whose main focus was not Hurricane Mitch. 'Specialty' articles included, for example, articles written about climate change that made a reference to Hurricane Mitch.

Hurricane Mitch - Media analysis results

We found 69 general review articles that were over 1000 words. The most commonly reported connections were hunger and disease, found in 52 and 54% of the articles respectively. These were followed by equity, food security and combined land use issues each found in around 20% of the articles. Population size, which is the root cause and main driver of the other related issues, was mentioned in only 2.9% of the articles. Climate change, which may have played an intensifing role, appeared 1.5% of the time.

A survey of 68 communications written by the public revealed that, in general, public opinion pieces made more environmental connections than did the media. It is striking that the public tended to make these connections almost twice as often as the reporters. The only exceptions to this case were the coverage of food security, which was nearly equal among reporters and the public, and hunger and disease, which were not mentioned as often by the public as by general reporters (Fig. 1).

Finally, the 40 specialty articles fell into one of several categories: articles on weather, climate change, the Kyoto protocol, debt relief, natural disasters or miscellaneous. Interestingly, two of the connections least mentioned by either reporters or the public were more often represented in these specialty articles (regardless of the specialty). These connections were climate change and population size (Fig. 1). Land use issues were also mentioned more often than in the general review articles.

Hurricane Mitch - Conclusions

Overall, environmental connections were not emphasized in the general newspaper coverage of Hurricane Mitch. While more than half of the articles mentioned hunger and disease, which are products of the lack of development and environmental problems and which can be precipitated by an event like Hurricane Mitch, few linked these to the underlying issues of population size or equity. Many articles mentioned that 70% of Honduras' crops were destroyed, but far fewer mentioned the country's dependence on cash crops and problems with food security. Additionally, while journalists wrote extensively about the massive mudslides, land use issues including soil loss, land degradation, deforestation and loss of biodiversity were only mentioned in a fraction of the articles. That climate change may have contributed to the hurricane was grossly overlooked by reporters. In general, journalists seemed to write only about the physical consequences of environmental problems and did not make the "connections" to the human activities that may have caused them.

It seems alarming that the public addressed more environmental connections than the general reporters did, but this result may be explainable. Letters to the editor and opinion articles are generally written when people feel as though their opinions are not being expressed by the media. It makes sense then, that the public would not write about the issues most discussed by reporters (hunger and disease) and would write about issues that they felt were not adequately represented (all others). Also, while the background of most of the public writers is unknown, several writers who did identify themselves were scientific researchers whose specialty was related to the subject they were writing about (i.e., climate change, forestry practices, etc.). The public writings we surveyed, therefore, may not reflect a random sample of the population, but may rather strongly represent the 'scientific public.

The search for specialty articles (those that made connections but whose main focus was not Hurricane Mitch) was not as exhaustive as the previous searches, but the results indicate that environmental connections are, in some cases, being made by the media. However, these connections are often made in articles that are reporting on the connection. For example, in the 'specialty' search we discovered 31 out of 40 articles that made the connection between the hurricane and climate change. These articles were largely articles about weather patterns, climate change or the Kyoto protocol. However, we found only 1 out of 68 Hurricane Mitch general review articles that mentioned a possible connection to climate change. This suggests that only journalists with a focus on environmental issues are reporting these connections.

Pacific northwest salmon fishery decline

Key connections

The ten environmental connections we looked for in salmon decline articles were: human population growth, ocean conditions, competition for water, river engineering, land-use issues, deforestation, water pollution, fish-farming and hatchery fish, introduction of non-native species, and commercial exploitation. We also noted whether the inherent value of salmon's existence was mentioned.

Human population growth

Human population size and growth have three effects: it is driving overharvesting, fish farming with negative side-effects, and direct habitat destruction. The overharvesting of fish stocks and an ever-increasing demand for fish protein are a direct result of human population growth. The human population has just topped 6 billion; food resources around the world are being strained and consumed at an unprecedented rate. As oceans and rivers are depleted and fish habitat is degraded, we have turned to artificial means of supplementing once abundant fish stocks. Salmon farming is a booming industry despite its negative impacts on the environment (which are discussed below under Hatchery and farm fish). Contrary to popular belief, this trade-off contributes little to world food security . Additionally, growth of the population and increased consumption are spurring massive development projects that compromise the quality and/or quantity of habitat for all wildlife, including salmon. With pressures from growing human populations impacting both their habitat and populations, salmon numbers will probably continue to decline in the absence of effective measures to save them.

Competition for water

Diverting stream water, mainly for agriculture, decreases the amount of water available for fish at critical points during their life cycle. For example, agriculture accounts for 83% of all water used in California . A third of this water goes to irrigate rice, cotton, alfalfa and pasturage, four economically low value crops that are highly subsidized and highly water consumptive. Water stored for urban consumption and flood control reduces the amount of in-stream flow. This can result in a higher reservoir water temperature which can be lethal to fish or lead to a high incidence of disease, as well as leaving tributaries inaccessible (or dry) to returning fish.

River engineering

River engineering encompasses a variety of activities; channelization, dams, reservoirs, and dredging. Channelization destroys slow moving water habitat critical to the survival of young fry before they head out to sea. When a river or stream is straightened, habitat heterogeneity is reduced, pools and wetlands are destroyed, and juveniles (smolts) are flushed to the sea prematurely. Coho juveniles have twice the likelihood of surviving and returning as adults than coho that have no slow-moving rearing area and that must go out to sea during their first year .

Dams can also cause problems for salmon. Eighteen large dams in the Columbia River basin provide the Pacific northwest region with federally subsidized hydropower. These dams block the salmons' access to upstream areas and prevent natural recolonization from downstream sources. The Columbia River's Grand Coulee Dam, built in 1941, blocked 1,100 miles of salmon-spawning grounds; Hells Canyon, in 1967, blocked further upstream migration on the Snake River. Even when adult (mature) salmon can bypass the dams with the help of fish ladders, the dams cause major problems for juvenile salmon heading downstream. Up to 15% of the juveniles are lost at each dam. Physically moving smolts in barges and trucks past the Snake River dams to the Columbia has a low success rate. According to tagged-fish studies, less than 0.5% of such salmon survive to return to their spawning grounds . Consequently, wild salmon from the Snake River Basin have declined nearly 90% in the last 30 years .

A reservoir is an artificial environment created behind dams which is lake-like, rather than riverine. The slack water makes migrating juvenile salmon vulnerable to predators and results in increased water temperatures. Warmer temperatures allow for faster spread of disease. By having to pass through numerous reservoirs, the juvenile salmon take much longer to reach the ocean than in a river without dams, and they may miss the critical transition period when their kidneys are able to adapt to salt water.

Dredging the Columbia River's shipping channel resulted in the formation of a handful of sand islands near Astoria beginning in the 1960s and has since complicated salmon restoration attempts. An example of this is the situation at Rice Island near the mouth of the Columbia River, now home to one of the world's largest colonies of Caspian terns. This protected seabird eats about 6 to ten young salmon each day and is believed to have consumed 10% of the salmon that migrated past the dams and through the reservoirs in 1996 . Since the island is located where the fresh water of the Columbia gives way to salt water, young salmon that haven't yet adjusted to salt water must linger in the freshwater part - the tern colony's main hunting ground. In addition, human changes to the river may be causing fish to linger longer. Barges move fish to the ocean so quickly that smolts sometimes reach the saltwater boundary before they have finished their transformation. Smolts that aren't barged, but face dams and reservoirs, arrive weakened by their voyage. Both hatchery and wild fish are weakened by diseases, such as bacterial kidney infection, which are worsened by the stresses of passing dams and being barged. These stressed fish do not want to go into the ocean, and terns take advantage of that . Dredging shipping channels can also hurt fish by disrupting the river bottom and making the water muddy.

Deforestation, Land use issues, Water quality

In order to persist, salmon need clear, cool gravel streams in which to spawn. They need pools and other slow-moving waters created by woody debris and rocks for rearing offspring. Deforestation, mining, grazing, and urbanization, to name a few activities, often cause water pollution and siltation, which are at odds with the needs of salmon. As a result, salmon populations in a given area struggle to survive, or disappear completely. What follows is an explanation of how these activities harm salmon.

Logging and the construction of logging roads causes erosion which buries eggs in gravel spawning beds, degrades water quality, and fills pools where salmon juveniles and their prey thrive. The loss of shade along riparian areas increases water temperature, and fragile eggs become too warm to survive.

Water quality can be compromised in many ways including the pollution of streams and rivers from agricultural sources with fertilizers, pesticides, and manure. Similarly, pollution occurs from the dumping of treated sewage, industrial effluent and urban runoff into rivers and bays. Mining results in toxic wastes that pollute streams and rivers and causes erosion. When stream banks are grazed, erosion results and water temperatures rise due to loss of shade.

Wetland degradation and urbanization destroy salmon habitat. Wetlands serve as important nurseries and water filters. Juvenile salmon, especially coho, need to overwinter in ponds and wetlands. Coho with wetland refuges have twice the likelihood of surviving and returning as adults as do coho who have no rearing area and must go out to sea during their first year . The paving of roads, creeks, parking lots, and sidewalks results in increased runoff that can cause floods that scour riverbeds and kill fish and eggs.

Unfavorable ocean conditions

Salmon populations are impacted by changing ocean conditions. The "Pacific decadal oscillation" is a natural long-term temperature cycle that occurs in the North Pacific. This temperature cycle impacts the mixing characteristics of the upper ocean, which in turn affect the animals salmon feed upon. Currently the fish are doing better in Alaskan waters, but a change within the next 10 years is expected to reverse the situation and rivers in the Pacific northwest will become climatically favorable again.

Global warming may affect the Pacific decadal oscillation with major impacts on fisheries. "A rise of 1 or 2 degrees Celsius in sea surface temperature in the Northern Pacific by the middle of the next century is a real possibility" and has the potential to shrink ocean habitat, resulting in the restriction of salmon populations to the Bering Sea. The northern shift in their ocean habitat would force the salmon to travel farther to reach their breeding rivers, resulting in smaller fish with fewer eggs.

Hatchery and farm fish

Fisheries are managed with both commercial and sport fishing in mind. As early as the turn of the century when fish populations began to decline due to development, deforestation, and the erection of dams, hatcheries were established in order to mitigate these losses. In an effort to increase salmon numbers, hatcheries breed and release massive numbers of salmon that are genetically inferior (not locally adapted and/or heavily inbred) to the wild stocks with which they share the river. These fish have low survival rates, and they weaken the wild genetic pool and spread disease when they interbreed with wild stocks.

Mismanagement of hatchery fish when ocean productivity is low can affect the survival rates of both wild and hatchery fish. In 1992, nearly 348 million salmonid smolts (203 million hatchery released) were present in the Columbia River Basin (32% above the estimated numbers prior to 1850) . Despite this increase in the number of young, adult returns were dismal. Too many hatchery smolts strained the food production capabilities of the Columbia River and estuary and may have caused higher mortality due to food shortages. Since there is evidence of significant diet overlap among sub-yearling and yearling salmonids in the estuary during the spring, there should be concern about the interaction among hatchery and wild salmon when overall ocean productivity declines.

Salmon farms are becoming a popular method for meeting the rising demand for salmon since fishing restrictions are becoming more stringent and the number of fisheries is declining. It is commonly believed that aquaculture relieves pressure on wild fisheries and adds to the world's food supply. For fish species raised as carnivores (such as salmon and shrimp) this is false. Fish stocks not otherwise sought for human food are exploited to provide farmed fish with nutrient-rich diets containing large amounts of fishmeal and fish oil extracted from wild-caught fish, thereby further disrupting oceanic food webs. The input of fish products into fish farms is two to four times the volume of outputs. In 1997, 1.8 million tons of wild fish feed was required to produce 644,000 metric tons of Atlantic salmon, a 2.8 : 1 ratio . Because of their dependence on wild-caught fish for feed, salmon aquaculture depletes rather than augments fisheries resources.

Along with the negative direct effects on wild fish populations, salmon farms introduce pollution, including fish feces and uneaten feed, directly into coastal waters. Poor water quality and high stocking densities facilitate outbreaks of salmon diseases and parasites that have caused large losses to salmon in farms. As a result, antibiotics and pesticides are used, which end up in coastal waters.

Introduction of non-native species

Introduced fishes occasionally replace native species in natural habitats through competition or predation, but most replacement occurs in altered environments (such as reservoirs) that provide the introduced fishes an ecological advantage . Non-native fish compete with salmon for food resources and often prey on young salmon.

Commercial exploitation

Bigger boats with more efficient nets are chasing fewer fish in a shrinking number of ocean fishing grounds. Too many boats chasing too few fish keeps the world fleet operating at a loss, despite billions of dollars in annual global subsidies. Fueled by subsidies, this overcapitalization results in a fishing frenzy. In addition, there is currently little meaningful negotiation and a lack of policies dealing with international disputes and overfishing of salmon spawned in one country and harvested in another (i.e. U.S./Canada fish war).

Inherent value of salmon (ecosystem services)

Because they are well studied and are relatively easy to collect and identify, fish are used to monitor aquatic biodiversity . Locally, salmon is considered an indicator species for the health of the Pacific northwest region. Salmon also plays an important role in the culture of the Pacific northwest and has a long history of sustaining its residents.

Salmon decline - Media analysis methods

To analyze the press coverage of salmon decline in the Pacific northwest, we again performed a search using Lexis-Nexis and also searched the archives of The News Tribune, Tacoma, Washington, and The Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, during the time period between January 1, 1998 and July 31, 1998. We ran searches for "salmon and decline," "salmon and extinction," and "salmon and fisheries," and selected only articles that were 500 words or longer and contained the word "salmon" more than twice. From this selection, we excluded articles on obituaries, recipes, restaurants, cooking, Atlantic salmon, fishing reports and competitions, travel articles, frozen food, timber harvest, water rights, and those using salmon as an example or tangential theme. Each article was assigned a 'category' based on its content and angle. Categories we analyzed included editorials and article on dams, the U.S./Canada fish war, salmon recovery efforts and research, politics, salmon decline, and the listing of salmon under the Endangered Species Act.

Salmon decline - Media analysis results

We reviewed a total of 230 articles, comprised of: 27 articles with a focus on salmon decline, 42 on dams, 36 on politics, 35 on salmon listings, 24 on U.S./Canada fish wars, 45 on salmon recovery efforts and research, 19 on resource extraction, and 21 editorials. Within the 7 categories, articles were scored as to whether or not they made the 11 possible connections.

The table below summarizes our search results. Article categories are across the top of the table and the connections we looked for are down the side. Connections that were made the most frequently are in bold. The average number of connections is calculated as well and can be used to rate the overall quality of the articles in each category.

TABLE 1.

Salmon decline - Conclusions

Overall, out of 230 articles, river engineering was connected the most consistently to salmon decline (117 connections). Land use, which includes urbanization and development, was the second most frequently listed factor, although journalists largely failed to identify the underlying issue of population growth (cited only 9 times) (See Figure 2). Although writers made the connection to poor ocean conditions a total of 26 times (11%), each connection referred to the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, El Nino, or simply uncontrollable changes in ocean conditions. These do not count as the connection that we were looking for since they are not human-caused factors of decline. There were zero connections to human caused patterns of global warming affecting salmon populations.

Editorials and articles on salmon run listings were the most thorough in connecting salmon decline to environmental and anthropogenic causes (See Table 1). This can be expected (and was also noted with Hurricane Mitch) since generally people are motivated to write editorials when they perceive a misunderstanding. The public wrote letters and op-eds to point out connections that they considered "missing" in media coverage or to react to an article and divert "blame" for salmon decline to a different factors. Although salmon listing articles made a relatively high number of connections compared to other categories, we do not believe that the media was as thorough in highlighting connections as would be expected in this category (only 3.9 connections per article out of 11). By declaring a salmon run listed under the Endangered Species Act, it would seem appropriate if not obligatory to offer an in-depth explanation as to how this has come about and which environmental and anthropogenic factors have resulted in this situation.

Overall conclusions regarding media coverage

The results of this study indicate that general reporters did not adequately represent environmental connections during the coverage of both Hurricane Mitch and the Pacific salmon fishery decline. That the public made more of these connections, and that some of them were scientists, may suggest that reporters (or their editors) are not aware of many environmental connections. Alternatively, this might indicate that reporters view making environmental connections as editorializing or wandering off the main news topic. Perhaps they view issues such as climate change and overpopulation as opinion or theory rather than fact. Whichever is the case, it is clear that journalists need to improve their awareness of environmental connections.

Writings by the public indicate a strong general concern for the environment, but we should not rely on letters to the editor and other opinion articles to inform the public of critical environmental issues. Although journalists did succeed in making a number of fairly immediate and obvious connections, many of the more less direct ones seemed to elude them.

Damage caused by natural disasters, including human death, is largely avoidable, but society needs to recognize how humans can and have exacerbated such disasters. They also need to understand the root causes behind species population declines so that they can evaluate their own actions and draw connections between the way they live their lives and the impacts humans have on wildlife populations, such as salmon. Action to regulate problems such as population size and land use comes only with sufficient public support. In order to formulate such policy, education of and understanding by the people is key. Journalists play a large role in educating the public, but it is clear from this study that journalists need assistance in identifying environmental connections. Scientists must recognize their role in this endeavor because it will take collaboration between scientists and journalists to improve everyone's future by educating people on the environmental consequences of their actions.

Literature Cited

Beamish, R., C. Mahnken, and C. Neville. 1997. Hatchery and wild production of Pacific salmon in relation to large-scale, natural shifts in the productivity of the marine environment. ICES Journal of Marine Science. 54:1200-1215.

Brinckman, J. 1998. Terns pose yet another threat to young salmon: At Rice Island, where smolts head to the sea, protected birds are gobbling up dwindling feast laid out by humans. The Oregonian. January 19, 963 words.

Corsaletti, L. 1998. Carving curves in a creek - Property owner on mission to give fish a place to grow. The Seattle Times. July 15, 582 words.

Ehrlich, A., C. Boggs, P. Ehrlich, C. Kremen. 1999. Missing Connections. Manuscript in process.

Lovett, R. A. 1999. As salmon stage disappearing act, dams may too. Science. April 23; 284:574-575.

Monroe, B. 1998. While the regulators fiddle, predators gorge on salmon. The Oregonian. May 24. 816 words.

Naylor, R. et al. 1998. Nature's subsidies to shrimp and salmon farming. Science. October 30: 282(5390):883. Willuams, N. 1998. Temperature rise could squeeze salmon. Science. May 29; 280(5368):1349.