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Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas
by Karen Pinchin
This is a tale of human obsession, one intrepid tuna, the dedicated fisherman who caught and set her free, the promises and limits of ocean science, and the big truth of how our insatiable appetite for bluefin transformed a cottage industry into a global dilemma.
In 2004, an enigmatic charter captain named Al Anderson caught and marked one Atlantic bluefin tuna off New England's coast with a plastic fish tag. Fourteen years later that fish—dubbed Amelia for her ocean-spanning journeys—died in a Mediterranean fish trap, sparking Karen Pinchin's riveting investigation into the marvels, struggles, and prehistoric legacy of this remarkable species.
Over his fishing career Al marked more than sixty thousand fish with plastic tags, an obsession that made him nearly as many enemies as it did friends. His quest landed him in the crossfire of an ongoing fight between a booming bluefin tuna industry and desperate conservation efforts, a conflict that is once again heating up as overfishing and climate change threaten the fish's fate.
Kings of Their Own Ocean is an urgent investigation that combines science, business, crime, and environmental justice. As Pinchin writes, "As a global community, we are collectively only ever a few terrible choices away from wiping out any ocean species." Through her exclusive access and interdisciplinary, mesmerizing lens, readers will join her on boats and docks as she visits tuna hot spots and scientists from Portugal to Japan, New Jersey to Nova Scotia, and glimpse, as the author does, rays of dazzling hope for the future of our oceans.
"An engaging and fascinating tale of a natural struggle that will help determine the future of the oceans." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Pinchin provides a solid analysis of the far-reaching consequences of human action on marine life." —Publishers Weekly
"The descriptions of Amelia's undersea wanderings are where Pinchin's writing really comes alive, manifesting her passion for protecting all marine life." —Booklist
"Karen Pinchin has written a moving, vivid, often heart-pounding narrative of the love, greed and dramas surrounding the lives and deaths of a fish upon whom human fortunes rise and fall—each an individual animal who surely loves his or her life as much as we love ours. Kings of Their Own Ocean is a moving and ultimately hopeful story, reminding us that if we are honest and we are wise, we still may save the denizens of our imperiled seas." —Sy Montgomery, New York Times bestselling author of National Book Award finalist The Soul of an Octopus
"Pinchin has written pathos, poetry and adrenaline into a story about one of the most famed and endangered sea creatures on the planet: the bluefin tuna. Not easy to get the science right while making the reporting riveting. But she did. And the candor in the personal back story to this lifelong interest in tuna and the ocean also gives the book just the right amount of feel as a memoir. Well worth the read." —Ian Urbina, nationally bestselling author of The Outlaw Ocean
"I love this book. From its first pages, Kings of Their Own Ocean is scientific work steeped in beautiful prose. I felt transported as I read the early chapters, not only to the ocean floor but to working coastal communities shaped by Atlantic waters. And what a journey! This book is about so much more than the science of fisheries, although Pinchin covers that field engagingly in this deep dive into family, culture, and themes of progress. Through cinematic writing and deep research, Karen Pinchin immerses us in a unique story and perspective on what might otherwise be a dauntingly complicated subject." —Lyndsie Bourgon, author of Tree Thieves
"Awash in lyricism and anchored in science and history, Kings of Their Own Ocean submerges readers in the enthralling lives of Al Anderson and Amelia to explore the depths of the Atlantic bluefin tuna industry. Karen Pinchin embarks on an intrepid journey to follow bluefin around the world, ruminating on human greed which threatens to wipe out the fish, and others that share its ocean home. Eloquent and sobering, Pinchin uncovers the tenuous fate of the bluefin, and deftly explains why the choices we make about the ocean matter." —Gloria Dickie, author of Eight Bears and a National Geographic Explorer
This information about Kings of Their Own Ocean was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Karen Pinchin is an award-winning investigative journalist and culinary school graduate. A recent Tow Fellow at PBS's Frontline, she graduated from Columbia Journalism School with a Master of Arts in science journalism and has since been supported by the Canada Council for the Arts and the Sloan Foundation. Her work has appeared in Scientific American, Canadian Geographic, Hakai Magazine, The Globe and Mail, and The Walrus, among other outlets. She lives, writes, and fishes in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with her husband, son, and a tankful of guppies.
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