Canberra Times and Dr Bryan Pratt

In January, a platypus was killed in Lake Burley Griffin after it was entangled in fishing line – either discarded or deliberately and illegally left in the water. That prompted a letter in the Canberra Times from local fish hunter, Shane Jasprizza (pub. Jan 17) describing the animal’s death as “unfortunate and regrettable” – as, of course, it was – but no worse than the death of any one of the thousands of fish he and his mates kill every year.

I wrote a reply (pub. Jan 19) asking why the death of the platypus was so much worse than the death of a fish – the desired outcome of a typical fishing trip – and pointing out that both platypus and fish feel pain and would have suffered.

This prompted local “fishing guru” Dr Bryan Pratt to devote a part of his weekly Canberra Times column (‘Gone Fishing’ Jan 22) to dismissing the idea that fish can feel pain. He said,

Unfortunate death of platypus brings out ignorant bleating of anti-anglers

Unfortunately, the publicity sur rounding the event, intending to serve as a useful reminder for anglers and others to be more careful about protection of wildlife, also brings out the crazies, bigots, Luddites and others in society who don't necessarily care about the wildlife but simply use this as another oppor tunity to publicise their hatred of angling. They paint anglers in the worst possible way and where they don't have facts to back up an argument they simply invent them. One classic example is to claim that fish feel pain and that anglers cause that pain.

Let's get this right. The full weight of scientific opinion, the result of an enormous amount of research in Australia and overseas, by totally independent scientists, indicates that fish do not feel pain, certainly not in the way that mammals do. They simply do not have the nervous system development to register pain. Consequently, feel free to ignore the bleatings of the anti-angling brigade each time they put forward more of this childish, ignorant and unhelpful nonsense and tell them to go away.

(Canberra Times, p30, Friday Jan 22, 2010)

As mine had been the only letter published claiming that fish feel pain, I took this as a personal insult. I sent a letter to the paper objecting to his language (“crazies, bigots, Luddites”, "childish, ignorant and unhelpful nonsense") and referring to scientific research which concluded that fish feel pain. I also pointed out that the RSPCA Policy on Angling (adopted August 2008) states, "RSPCA Australia considers that the available scientific evidence demonstrates that fish are capable of experiencing pain and suffering".

Given that research and the RSPCA policy, I argued that it was simply unsustainable to argue that, “The full weight of scientific opinion … indicates that fish do not feel pain”.

The letter was not published within a couple of days so I sent it again copying it to the CT Editor and with a note explaining the reasons I thought his crap deserved a response. Again – no joy.

However, the following Friday (Jan 29), Pratt again mentioned the issue in his column.

Science hits raw nerve

My comment last week on the science of whether or not fish feel pain drew a mixed response.

Most people were interested to hear of the scientific findings but others, amazingly, were convinced I was singling them out for special treatment and challenging their ver acity. I apologise to those poor souls and assure them that I had no such intention.

What I was presenting was that the consensus of scientific opinion is that fish do not feel pain because they lack the necessary neurological make-up to do so and yes I am aware of the experiment at the Roslin Institute and Edinburgh University whereby a researcher injected saline solution into fish and claimed they feel pain when they reacted badly to it.

Equally they could just have found it distasteful without actually feeling or registering pain.

I repeat that the vast body of scientific opinion is that fish do not feel pain. That's not just my opinion, it's that of independent scientists worldwide and I am happy to pass on that information without denigrating anybody else's opinion.

(Canberra Times, p23, Friday Jan 29, 2010)

I faxed the good doctor (I don’t have an email address for him) on the day he made that offer asking him to ‘pass on that information’. Despite a reminder a week later, I have received nothing from him.

Pratt also does a brief fishing report on local ABC radio on Thursday mornings. Prior to his appearance on Feb 4, I emailed the show and asked them to put my points to him and ask him to provide the proof for his claims. The presenter did, referring to my email.  Pratt dismissed the science (he’d heard that stuff before) and as to whether he was going to provide proof (put to him as ‘a challenge’) he said that he didn’t respond to such nonsense.

The local RSPCA also sent a letter to the Canberra Times defending their policy but it was not published.

I don’t deny Dr Pratt or anyone the right to express an opinion. If he had simply said that he disagreed with the scientific research that is showing that fish probably feel pain then so be it. 

But he didn’t – he claimed that the full weight of scientific opinion indicates that fish do not feel pain. That statement cannot be substantiated.

Dr Pratt is either deliberately lying or is deluding himself. I guess that’s understandable given that he profits financially by encouraging people to hunt fish and then selling them the equipment required to do so.

The Canberra Times has allowed a columnist to vehemently assert an untruth and refused to publish letters which would show that the RSPCA refutes that assertion.

At least there was some airing of the RSPCA position – two local papers (The Chronicle and City News) published my letters referring to the RSPCA policy and some recent research from Norway.

Meanwhile, I’ll continue to remind Dr Pratt that I am waiting on his promised information.

Y Fish?

I have devised a new sport. I’m planning on taking the family down to Garema Place in Civic one lunchtime where there are plenty of magpies hanging around the café tables looking for scraps.

We’ll bait some hooks with raw meat and cast them to the birds. Once we coax one to swallow the bait and get the hook embedded in its mouth or throat we’ll start to haul it in. It’ll probably try to fly off so we’ll get some great sport as it fights to get away.

If it’s still alive by the time we reel it in we might let it go – catch and release is the go these days. It might even recover after its painful, stressful experience. But if it’s big enough to eat we’ll just drop it into a plastic box and tightly seal the lid so that the animal can slowly die from lack of oxygen.

Sounds disgusting doesn’t it? No one would allow it. So why the hell do we allow – even promote – the identical thing to be done to other small animals, i.e. fish?
Scientific evidence shows that fish feel stress and pain in the same way as other animals such as birds (see Science below).

It may not be absolutely proved that angling hurts fish (and the angling groups are pushing that line) but the mere fact that they may should be enough to stop the so-called sport now. The onus of proof is definitely on the anglers to prove that what they do cannot hurt the fish – or the live bait they use for that matter.

We should never confuse an animal’s inability to express its pain and suffering with its capacity to suffer. Just because fish have no voice and do not have facial expressions we can’t assume that they are not suffering.

I suspect that if these animals could scream or had legs that enabled them to run back to the water it would change the attitudes of at least some fisher-folk. I can’t imagine a lot of anglers chasing after a screaming fish as it ran back to the water.

Science
Dr Lynne Sneddon at the Roslin Institute, near Edinburgh, Scotland said “To demonstrate pain perception it was necessary to prove that the fish’s behaviour was adversely affected by a potentially painful experience and that the behavioural change was not a simple reflex response. Our research conclusively demonstrated evidence of pain perception”. - Fish do feel pain scientists say http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/2983045.stm

Similarly, Dr Victoria Braithwaite, of Edinburgh University’s school of biological sciences says “The evidence I have presented suggests that fish do have the capacity to experience pain and fear” - Fish Pain Perception http://www.aquanet.ca/English/research/fish/vb.pdf

For more, see FishingHurts.com