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Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina 1997. Henry Holt &
Co. 458p.
Dr. Safina, a winner of the Pew Charitable Trust’s Scholar’s Award in Conservation and the Environment,
demonstrates the same fine writing here that he maintained in his later book,
The Eye of the Albatross.
Within Song for the Blue Ocean, book one focuses on giant bluefin tuna
off the northeast US in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. Book two turns to salmon
on the northwest coast. Finally, book three examines coral reefs and reef fishes
in the Far Pacific, the waters adjacent to China, Indonesia, the Philippines and
islands.
In each stanza of the song the author interviews the various shareholders with a
stake in that fishery. We fly with him in a tuna spotting plane. We dive with
him and scientists labeling and counting groupers on coral reefs. We walk with
him through the Hong Kong fish market. By reporting exact conversations
throughout, the reader confronts various perspectives and can recognize bias.
The brutal truth is that around the world we are decimating populations of food
and aquarium fishes.
Overfishing has effectively removed the top predators in most oceanic food webs.
This reduces the diversity of fishes at lower trophic levels in that web.
In the far Pacific the use of cyanide for fish capture is destroying coral reefs
and other habitats.
This beautiful song delivers the sad
refrain of the looming death of major fisheries. Can we have an intermission to
allow ecosystem recovery? Can we have an encore to provide a current assessment?
Written June 5, 2009
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