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Most Important Fish in the Sea:

Menhaden and America

ISBN-13: 9781597265072
Publisher: ISLAND PRESS
Imprint: SHEARWATER
By H. Bruce Franklin
Price: AUD $67.99
Stock: 0 in stock
Availability: This book is temporarily out of stock, order will be despatched as soon as fresh stock is received.
Local release date: 14/12/2008
Format: Paperback 280 pages Weight: 0g
Categories: Earth sciences [RB]

Description
Table of Contents
Reviews
Google Preview: In this brilliant portrait of the oceans' unlikely hero, H. Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America's national'and natural'history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and industry. By the mid-1870s, menhaden had replaced whales as a principal source of industrial lubricant, with hundreds of ships and dozens of factories along the eastern seaboard working feverishly to produce fish oil. Since the Civil War, menhaden have provided the largest catch of any American fishery. Today, one company'Omega Protein'has a monopoly on the menhaden reduction industry.a Every year it sweeps billions of fish from the sea, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil used in everything from linoleum to health-food supplements.

The massive harvest wouldn't be such a problem if menhaden were only good for making lipstick and soap. But they are crucial to the diet of bigger fish and they filter the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, playing an essential dual role in marine ecology perhaps unmatched anywhere on the planet. As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds dependent on them have been decimatedand toxic algae have begun to choke our bays and seas. In Franklin's vibrant prose, the decline of a once ubiquitous fish becomes an adventure story, an exploration of the U.S. political economy, a groundbreaking history of America's emerging ecological consciousness, and an inspiring vision of a growing alliance between environmentalists and recreational anglers.; Chapter 1. Now You See Them, Now You Don't
Chapter 2. The New World of Fish
Chapter 3. Meeting Menhaden: In Our World and Theirs
Chapter 4. Whales, Menhaden, and Industrialized Fishing
Chapter 5. The Death of Fish and the Birth of Ecology
Chapter 6. At War with Menhaden
Chapter 7. Ecological Catastrophes
Chapter 8. Collision Courses
Chapter 9. The Fish of the Future?

Acknowledgements
Notes
Index; "The history of this fish's exploitation for fertilizer and to manufacture numerous products is a fascinating slice of Americana. How menhaden have fallen prey today to a single corporation—with potentially catastrophic effects to the ecosystem—is a saga that will outrage every conservation-minded citizen."; Google Preview content