This section describes books about Marine Ecology. These books are about things that affect the sea and the fishing that we all love.
Links are provided to Amazon.com where you can find out more about these books, and if you like, purchase them at a discount.
Striper Wars
by Dick Russell - 2005
When commercial overfishing sent striped bass populations into free fall in the 1980s, Dick Russell emerged as a key spokesman in a long-shot crusade
by dedicated fishermen to save them. Striper Wars is
Russell’s vibrant account of their thrilling, yet tenuous
victory, complete with heroes and villains. In one
of nature’s great comebacks, groundbreaking moratoriums
allowed the striper population to rebound
more than tenfold. Yet today, the striper
faces new
threats, including a deadly bacterial disease. While
perils persist, Dick Russell’s inspiring account offers fundamental lessons
about the power of civic action and the necessity of a holistic
approach to conservation.
The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America
by H. Bruce Franklin - 2007
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.
The Unnatural History of the Sea
by Callum Roberts - 2007
Marine conservation biologist Roberts presents a devastating account of the effects of fishing on the sea. Once abundant aquatic life has declined to the point where we probably have less than five percent of the total mass of fish that once swam in Europe's seas, he states. Intensive fishing since medieval times has caused this decline gradually over the centuries, so that the fish-deprived sea seems normal to today's generations. Industrial fishing, especially trawling, has virtually eliminated entire habitats, including cod in Canada, oysters in Chesapeake Bay and herring in the North Sea. Now, sophisticated devices such as sonar depth sensors are being used to plunder that last frontier, the deep sea. Callum's alarming conclusion is that by the year 2048, fisheries for all the fish and shellfish species we exploit today will have collapsed.
