Tuna in a can. That’s the tuna that I grew up with, most notably in a favorite tuna casserole that my mother made. My kids grew up relishing a tuna melt lovingly put together with solid white albacore. As adults, we are all sushi and sashimi fans.
While in the tuna family, the Atlantic bluefin tuna is on an entirely different level than its cousin the albacore. This fierce fish is bigger, stronger and with meat that is not headed into cans but rather savored fresh for its rich, red succulence. Once caught, the bluefin has few precious (preferably chilled) days between the ship and a discriminating customer’s palette.
A combination of culinary school, science, and investigative journalism are perfect ingredients for author Karen Pinchin to craft a compelling narrative about the history and future plight of this storied fish—a fish that has captured the hearts and hands of hardworking fishermen for centuries.
“Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas” is an enthralling read that will have readers hanging on to a rod, while strapped onto a deck chair, struggling to bring in a fish that can weigh hundreds, and often, thousands of pounds. She aptly describes the adrenaline rush associated with such an endeavor.
Anderson’s Amelia
The book’s central theme follows the fate of one bluefin tuna and the fisherman who catches, tags, and releases her back into the Atlantic Ocean in 2004. A charter captain, Al Anderson, realizes early in his fishing enterprise that tagging the fish he loves to catch could help in collecting data to preserve them for future generations.
“By marking a fish and releasing it, modern scientists can plant an irrefutable data point, a record of that one fish caught in a particular place at an exact size and weight. If a fish tagger catches and tags 100 more fish, the likelihood that a tagged fish will be re-caught goes up.”
Now, back in the water, Amelia continues growing and traveling for several more years until in 2018 she is unable to escape the intricate netting maze of a Mediterranean fish trap. She is caught but this time is not released.
Fate, Fortune, and a Fascinating Fish
Bluefins are big business particularly as the demand for sushi and bluefin steak has accelerated worldwide over the decades. Their meat is highly prized.Ms. Pinchin adds depth and history about the bluefin tracing its roots back to antiquity in early cave paintings and depictions in art from the Greeks and Romans forward. The Japanese fondness for this fish can likewise be seen in the 1800s’ woodblock prints by Utagawa Hiroshige.
In Spain, Ms. Pinchin highlights the generations of families that have devoted their livelihoods and reputations on harvesting the alluring bluefin. Similar to a matador facing a bull, divers’ risk underwater dangers when confronting the bluefin.
Throughout the decades, measures have been undertaken by many countries on both sides of the Atlantic and the Pacific to strike a balance between commercial interests and conservation. The ocean is not limitless.
Moratoriums, quotas, and even an imaginary line supposedly dividing the Atlantic Ocean are some of the steps taken, but politics has often prevailed as to who gets to fish where, for how long, and how many pounds can be harvested. And then there’s the corruption and criminal aspect when fortunes are at stake.
Monaco took a bold step under the leadership of Prince Albert II to safeguard the species by removing bluefin tuna from restaurant menus and retailers’s shelves. They were the first country to do so.
For Ms. Pinchin, her research about the bluefin and the cast of characters revolving around its future admittedly became an obsession. The more she learned the more she wanted to know. Her narrative is deeply moving, parts reading like a memoir, as she embarks on her own journey interviewing many and visiting fishing hubs in Spain and Japan to name a few.
The result is a poignant and powerful look at a global industry bound to an ocean creature of incredible strength and beauty. Her prose does not come across as the ruminations of a radical environmentalist but rather as a concerned and compassionate observer of our relationship with nature and what steps could be taken to preserve this fragile balance.
Worth the read? Absolutely.
