The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America [Hardcover]

H. Bruce Franklin (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1597261246 | ISBN-13: 978-1597261241 | Publication Date: April 13, 2007 | Edition: 1

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.” 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.

(20070722)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Franklin, a historian and author of over 15 books (most recently War Stars), was inspired by his passion for saltwater angling to write this history of the all-but-extinct menhaden, a fish that's historically served an essential part of the Atlantic coastal food web, including human populations (natives and settlers both). Integrating his own observations, Franklin spins a grim but compelling tale of the role menhaden play in maintaining critical near-shore habitats, their utility to early Americans and the collapse of their stocks over the past 150 years. Beginning in Maine during the latter half of the 19th century, the menhaden decline has accelerated alongside the nation's economic and technological growth, in particular the increasing sophistication of the fishing industry. Effects are widespread: as the menhaden population thins out, so have bass, bluefish, weakfish and other species, while estuaries suffer catastrophic phytoplankton blooms that create long-lived "dead zones" in which nothing can survive. This informative, riveting narrative exposes the greed, short-sightedness and unintended consequences which nearly destroyed the Atlantic coast ecosystem entirely, and continue to wreak havoc in the Gulf of Mexico. Franklin's final chapter provides a measure of hope, describing the happy but imperiled recovery of menhaden populations along New Jersey and New England coastlines.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

Franklin''s "''prose is lucid and infused with an urgency that depends little on hyperbole and largely on careful documentation. His compelling narrative informs and enlightens."

(Susan P. Williams Washington Post 20070506)

 "This informative, riveting narrative exposes the greed, short-sightedness and unintended consequences which nearly destroyed the Atlantic coast ecosystem entirely..."

(Publishers Weekly- Starred Review )

"This a fascinating, chilling and yet hopeful account of fish we need for the health of our marine environment."

(Patricia Turner Newark Star-Ledger )

 "Franklin''s book on the runty menhaden is a killer whale achievement. It''s an eloquent call to end the phony business of incremental regulation of fisheries that are rapidly being driven by industry into the abyss."

(Tom Pelton Baltimore Sun )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 280 pages
• Publisher: Island Press; 1 edition (April 13, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597261246
• ISBN-13: 978-1597261241
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #373,653 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Yup, It Actually Is the Most Importan Fish in the Sea, August 14, 2007

By 

Mark K. Mcdonough "Mark McDonough" (Reston, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America (Paperback)

About 25 years ago, when I used to have the time to take a random vacation now and then, I was taking the ferry to Ocracoke Island at the southern end of the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Last ferry of the day. It was night. Suddenly, the ferry was surrounded by an unfathomable number of leaping, flopping fish. And the school went on, and on and on. I was absolutely stunned. It was the sort of experience that pioneers talked about when seeing the endless herds of buffalo on the Plains.

I asked a local what kind of fish these amazing creatures were.

"Ah, they're just menhaden."

And that's the story on menhaden -- the amazing fish that everyone takes for granted. I bought this book (my wife: "You're buying a book on WHAT?") partly because my long-ago experience made me curious, and partly because of an interest in fisheries issues.

And what a pleasure. First, I found out that, at least on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, menhaden really are the most important fish in the sea. They convert the phytoplankton (small floating plant critters) into high-energy flesh, and thus become the primary food source for various sport fish, including bluefish. They also filter an astonishing amount of water (4 gallons per minute per adult fish), ensuring that sunlight penetrates deep enough to nurture eelgrass and that decaying phytoplankton don't choke all the oxygen out of the water. Even their dying is important -- bluefish rush into the giant schools and tear menhaden to bits, and the chunks the bluefish miss are a primary food source for crabs.

That is, if we don't catch them all and feed them to pigs and chickens, which is pretty much what we've been trying to do in one form or another for a couple of centuries.

The other big surprise was what a great read this book is. I've read pretty much every book on fisheries written for the general audience in the last decade, and let me tell you, it's sometimes a grim task. Not this time. I actually stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish this book. It's great read, blending history, science, and the author's personal experience as a recreational fisherman.

Before reading the book, I had some knowledge of the fact that there was once a large fish processing industry of some sort on the East Coast -- in many towns locals will point out where the "fish plant" used to be. I didn't realize that it involved processing menhaden for fertilizer, oil, and animal feed.

This industry has dwindled to exactly one barely profitable firm, protected by the infamously boneheaded state legislature of Virginia. The author passionately argues that catching menhaden for processing should be banned. And unlike a lot of environmental books, this one actually ends on an up note -- a complete ban on catching menhaden for processing in New Jersey waters seems to have led to a relatively quick recovery of the species.

This summer, I took another short vacation near one of Deleware's inland bays. And I actually saw some juvenile menhaden in the bay (the way they flop out of the water is quite characteristic) and a few menhaden minnows (called "peanuts") schooling in the ocean. May there soon be many more.

30 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Evidence that the Title Is True, April 13, 2007

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America (Hardcover)

You can't go to your seafood store or fishmonger and order them, and it may well be that you have never even heard of them, but menhaden are, according to a new book, _The Most Important Fish in the Sea_ (Island Press). Author H. Bruce Franklin also knew almost nothing about them until one day when he was fishing with friends at the mouth of the tidal Matawan Creek in New Jersey. He saw a spotter plane fly over the ocean to guide a boat to a school of menhaden, and then saw the boat haul in the entire school by a purse seine net. Franklin wasn't there to fish for menhaden himself; no angler does that, because menhaden stink and they are bony and "so oily that just about no human would chose to eat them". After the boat had taken its catch away, the bluefish and weakfish that Franklin might have been angling for were no longer there, because there was no menhaden for them to feed upon. It was not just a temporary void; industrial fishing for menhaden has been going on for a century and a half, efficiently wiping out the fish from waters off the east coast, and now working on the Gulf Coast variant, too. Menhaden does not just feed game fish; in an eye-opening book, Franklin shows that it is a keystone species and that its destruction is doing far more than depriving other fish of their accustomed meals. He also gives a history of the menhaden fishery and the reactions to it, which parallels our emerging ecological awareness, and also our ineffective attempts to restore ecological balance.

Menhaden get to be about a foot long. They look something like herrings and were often confused with them by the first settlers here. The oceans used to be full of them. The Algonquin Indians had known for years, and taught the settlers, that planting some dead menhaden along with corn could greatly increase the yield. In the nineteenth century, pulling "guano from the sea" became a lucrative industry, and with the invention of the purse seine, the unlimited schools of menhaden were doomed. Menhaden reduction is still practiced, mostly by the essentially monopolistic firm Omega Protein. It continues to take menhaden out, not just for fertilizer these days, but also for food pellets for chicken and farm-raised fish (you do eat menhaden, just not directly) and (as the name implies) for trendy fish oils. Menhaden are the preferred diet for predatory fish, birds, and mammals, and that these species have to turn to other prey or die was known to the incipient ecology movement of the nineteenth century. What could not have been known back then and has only become clear in recent decades is that menhaden play a vital role not just by being eaten but also by eating. Menhaden are filter feeders, slurping up huge quantities of cellulose and other junk in the water, but especially masses of phytoplankton, including algae. They eat the nutrient-rich phytoplankton which is incorporated into their bodies and taken out to sea for further dispersal. Remove the menhaden, and the water gets turbid and killer algal blooms form; it is no coincidence that the increase in frequency of devastating blooms has come as menhaden are fished out of the waters.

There is some hope in this bleak story. Menhaden are resilient and they have the capacity to bounce back in subsequent generations. Franklin believes, as do many other fishermen, that when New Jersey banned Omega Protein's fleets from its waters that there was a resurgence of menhaden and of the bluefish and striped bass that eat them. He is concerned that this may mean that Omega Protein will be eager to get the ban reversed since, they will argue, there really isn't any problem. It might be that such a ban in the Chesapeake would allow the menhaden to renew their other great environmental role of keeping the water clear and healthy. Franklin's book is persuasive, and will help with a positive answer to the great question he poses: "Will enough people come to realize that the most vital mission of our most important fish is not creating corporate profits but restoring and sustaining our marine environment?"

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, April 16, 2007

By 

Carolyn L. Karcher (Washington, DC, DC USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America (Hardcover)

H. Bruce Franklin's The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden in America is a must read for anyone interested in the health of the marine environment, the history of the fishing industry and its offshoots, or simply fishing as a recreational activity. The story Franklin tells of a fish few have heard of is as gripping as a novel, the book is studded with lyrical descriptions of menhaden schools and the countless varieties of fish and sea birds that feast on them, and the voyage on which Franklin takes the reader through history, economics, ecology, and marine biology is epic in scope though packed into only 200 entertaining pages.

Franklin demonstrates irrefutably that menhaden are crucial to the survival of such highly prized food fish as striped bass, such delicacies as oysters and crabs, such endangered bird species as ospreys and loons, and ultimately even our bays and estuaries. That is because menhaden not only form the main diet of numerous fish and aquatic birds, but even more importantly perform the indispensable function of filtering the water by eating algae that otherwise proliferate into toxic blooms, choke out oxygen, and create dead zones. Over the past five decades, however, menhaden themselves have become an endangered species as a result of overfishing by a reduction industry that searches for them with spotter planes, scoops up whole schools in huge seine nets, and converts them into commodities readily available from other sources.

After detailing the ecological catastrophe that awaits us if this senseless overfishing drives menhaden into extinction, Franklin offers hope that we can still save our environment. His inspiring last chapter shows how recreational anglers and environmentalists can unite to protect menhaden from the reduction industry and how menhaden populations have rebounded wherever the reduction industry has been banned. This is one of those rare books that everyone can read with profit and enjoyment.