Four Fish: The Future Of The Last Wild Food

[Tim Smith]

About 1/4 through this one so far and it seems to be worthwhile.

It talks about the last wild stocks of fish in the world (including a long section on salmon and arguments for and against genetically modified salmon), the effects of the advent of aquaculture, and 4 examples of how that process is unfolding around the world (with numerous dips into recreational fishing issues).

Here's a line from the introduction:

(quoting Francis Galton) "It would appear that every wild animal has haad its chance of being domesticaed." Of the undomesticated animals left behind, Galton has this depressing prediction: "As civilization extends they are doomed to be gradually destroyed off the face of the earth as useless consumers of cultivated produce." And that brings us to the present day, the crucial point at which we stand in our current relationship with the ocean. Must we eliminate all wildness from the sea and replace it with some kind of human controlled system, or can wildness be understood and managed well enough to keep humanity and the marine world in balance?

Here's a quote from the salmon chapter:

And so we've reached a crossroads with salmon. Either we can invest money and effort into making a more and more artificial salmon, one whose very genetic components are profoundly different from their ancestors, or we can simply say that we've gone far enough with selective breeding. That the selection that should now happen is the means of feed and husbandry practices that sustain these farmed fish. Instead of putting artificial selection pressure on salmon, it may be time to put selection pressure on farmers. Let the fittest most closed system survive and reap the economic benefits inherent in that victory.

[Quillback]

Sounds like an interesting read.

[smallmouthjoe]

I heard the author of this book give an interview on NPR this last summer and it sounded pretty interesting. At one point in the interview he compared the wild stocks of fish we have in the oceans to the buffalo that use to range the plains. We have replaced 60 million buffalo with 80 million cows at the cost of millions of acres of prairie ecosystem. I need to get my hands on a copy of this book this summer.