Four Fish – The Future of the Last Wild Food by Paul Greenberg is a beautifully written examination of the complexities involved in our relationship with fish as a food source. The four fish referred to in the title are salmon, cod, tuna and sea bass. Greenberg raises many questions – the depletion of fish stocks by overfishing to the point where the survival of species is questionable, and the practices of fish farming, which can spread disease to wild fish. The amount of wild fish necessary to feed the fish being farmed is considerable, and depletes another stock. He examines each of these four fish species, and the possibilities of whether or not they can be farmed.
One of the greatest challenges posed is the very nature of the fish themselves – they roam the world’s oceans across international boundaries. In order to protect fish stocks, nations must agree on when and where, and what methods should be used to harvest fish, if they should be harvested at all. Greenberg makes a convincing case that it may be already too late to save bluefin tuna. The author writes lyrically “If salmon led us out of the Neolithic caves in the highlands down to the mouths of rivers, if sea bass and other coastal perciforms led us from the safety of the shore to the reefs and rocks that surround the coasts, and if cod and the gadiforms led us beyond the sight of land to the edges of the continental shelves, tuna have taken us over the precipice of the continental shelves into the abyss of the open sea – the final frontier of fishing and the place where the wildest things are making the last argument for the importance of an untamed ocean.”
He questions whether fish are wildlife that are sensitive to our actions and merit our sound protection and propagation in the way we take care of our terrestrially farmed animals. For too long seafood was thought of as a crop that grows back every year and never required planting. The ocean seemed to be a limitless resource, but relentless and unsustainable industrial fish harvesting and habitat loss has taken its toll. For example, as many as 100 million Atlantic salmon larvae hatched in the Connecticut River. Dams and overfishing have destroyed that fishery, and there is no longer any wild Atlantic salmon
At the end of the book, Greenberg suggests four actions which need to be taken to restore the health of fisheries:
1. a profound reduction in fishing effort. The United Nations estimates the fishing fleet is twice as large as the oceans can support. Fishing fleets are subsidized by governments and consequently, wild fish are unreasonably cheap.
2. there should be a conversion ofsignificant portions of ocean ecosystems to no-catch areas. Key fish breeding and nursery habitats must be preserved as safe havens if fish stocks are to rebuild harvestable numbers. Currently, only one percent of ocean habita t is protected
3. gloobal protection of unmanageable species – species or stocks that straddle too many nations, like Atlantic bluefin tuna is necessary
4. protection of the bottom of the food chain. Small forage fish like anchovies, sardines, capelin and herring, are a huge portion of fish caught. Removing the basic food source of the ocean can cause a fisheries collapse from below.
This is a marvelously written book which raises many thoughtful and important questions. It will be up to us to determine how important it is to preserve the last truly wild food.
Baywatch stayed at the dock not last week, not due to wind or weather conditions, but due to an engine malfunction. Not the boat’s – I was in Syracuse for my niece’s wedding and my car broke down on the way to her reception. So, I had the car towed, and spent a little time longer in Syracuse than I had planned. Oh well, my niece and her new husband are a wonderful couple, and it was a lovely wedding, and family is what it is all about. I’m looking forward to the next wedding already. Our Friends of the Bay volunteers are the best, and we will be extending our season by one week to get in another round of water quality monitoring to end out our year.
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