The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America by H. Bruce Franklin

Off Nature Ecology

By H. Bruce Franklin

In this significant portrait of the oceans’ not going hero, H. Bruce Franklin exhibits how menhaden have formed America’s national—and natural—history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their position in either. given that local american citizens begun utilizing menhaden as fertilizer, this striking fish has greased the wheels of U.S. agriculture and undefined. by means of the mid-1870s, menhaden had changed whales as a primary resource of commercial lubricant, with 1000s of ships and dozens of factories alongside the japanese seaboard operating feverishly to provide fish oil. because the Civil battle, menhaden have supplied the most important trap of any American fishery. this present day, one company—Omega Protein—has a monopoly at the menhaden “reduction industry.” each year it sweeps billions of fish from the ocean, grinds them up, and turns them into animal feed, fertilizer, and oil utilized in every thing from linoleum to health-food supplements.

 

The sizeable harvest wouldn’t be this kind of challenge if menhaden have been in basic terms sturdy for making lipstick and cleaning soap. yet they're an important to the vitamin of larger fish they usually filter out the waters of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts, enjoying a necessary twin position in marine ecology maybe unequalled anyplace in the world. As their numbers have plummeted, fish and birds depending on them were decimatedand poisonous algae have all started to choke our bays and seas. In Franklin’s brilliant prose, the decline of a as soon as ubiquitous fish turns into an event tale, an exploration of the U.S. political financial system, a groundbreaking background of America’s rising ecological cognizance, and an inspiring imaginative and prescient of a becoming alliance among environmentalists and leisure anglers.

Show description

Read Online or Download The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America PDF

Similar nature & ecology books

Water and Development: 1 (Independent Evaluation Group Studies)

Improvement styles, expanding inhabitants strain, and the call for for larger livelihoods in lots of components of the globe all give a contribution to a gradually deepening worldwide water challenge. improvement redirects, consumes, and pollutes water. It additionally explanations alterations within the nation of usual water reservoirs, without delay via draining aquifers and in a roundabout way through melting glaciers and the polar ice caps.

Incroyables insectes (Nature) (French Edition)

Du plus petit au plus grand, du plus discret au plus voyant, les exploits des insectes, leurs files et leurs originalités sont décrits dans ce livre pour tous publics, avec simplicité et humour, mais sans aucune exagération. Oui, ils sont capables de tout ça ! Et pour le prouver, de nombreuses et superbes photographs, l. a. plupart prises sur le terrain, confirmeront aux incrédules que nos amis les insectes sont vraiment INCROYABLES !

Advances in Irish Quaternary Studies (Atlantis Advances in Quaternary Science)

This booklet offers a brand new synthesis of the broadcast examine at the Quaternary of eire. It stories a few major advances within the final 3 many years at the realizing of the development and chronology of the Irish Quaternary glacial, interglacial, floristic and career documents. these applying the newest know-how have enabled major advances in geochronology utilizing sped up mass spectrometry, cosmogenic nuclide extraction and optically encouraged luminescence among others.

Local Environmental Politics in China: Challenges and Innovations

Wisdom and perception in nationwide environmental governance in China is common. in spite of the fact that, more and more it's been said that the foremost difficulties in guiding the chinese language economic climate and society in the direction of sustainability are to be chanced on on the neighborhood point. This booklet illuminates the fast-changing dynamics of neighborhood environmental politics in China, an issue in simple terms marginally addressed within the literature.

Additional info for The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America

Example text

Download PDF sample

The Smart Woman's E-books > Nature Ecology > The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America by H. Bruce Franklin
Rated 4.27 of 5 – based on 43 votes

About The Author