Eclectic Echoes

Review

Rating: 6

Sea birds diving into a dense school of fish, bluefish ripping through the school devouring fish as stripers cruise below eating an fish that stray low and the chunks of sinking fish from the ruthless attacks above. This is the dramatic scene that H. Bruce Franklin’s The Most Important Fish in the Sea opens. It is an action filled depiction of a menhaden school being devoured by predators from all angles. Menhaden are, according to this book, the most valuable fish in the sea, in large part because they are food for so many other fish as well as the ecosystem services they can provide. In the social and economic evaluation they are important not only as food for important commercial fish, but also for their own flesh and oil. This small oily clupeoid fish is heavily targeted by human fisheries, from historic Native Americans to the large industrial fishing and factory processing by Omega Proteins, even though the fish itself is not directly eaten by humans.

In The Most Important Fish in the Sea H. Bruce Franklin builds on the early work of Brown Goode’s A History of Menhaden and Ida Proper’s Monhegan: The Cradle of New England, mixing in information from New York Times articles and a masters thesis by Sara Gottlieb, using his own experiences to weave them together into a fascinating and easy to read book. He documents their exploitation as animal feed, in cosmetics, as fertilizer, for health food supplements, and lubricants. The history of this use, from Native Americans to Omega Protein, is well documented by the author. Franklin’s The Most Important Fish in the Sea is a fascinating and an easy read, but to be truly informative and a catalyst for change, if indeed change is needed, it must also be able to withstand critical analysis and be free of strong bias and unsubstantiated claims which only serve to cloud and confuse the issues and make long term effective change harder to bring about.

Franklin’s bias becomes readily apparent as he begins discussing the social and economic impacts of Omega Protein. While it is apparent the he is concerned about the welfare of the fish it is also clear that he is more sympathetic with recreational fishing which exploits menhaden as bait and for their ability to attract bluefish and striped bass. It is patently clear that he is against the reduction industry in general and Omega Protein in particular. He accuses the state of Virginia of subjecting itself to the wishes of Omega Protein. He labels Omega Protein as a war fleet in “heavily patrolled” Virginia waters where they are responsible for the “butchering of menhaden” and in particular of “massacring the juvenile fish.” As a participant in protests against Omega Protein the author confirms his overt bias against Omega and the commercial menhaden reduction industry.

In the next to last chapter Franklin openly reveals his motivation for writing The Most Important Fish in the Sea, and in doing so, also indicates his own biases and romantic inclinations as a recreational fisherman who witnessed a commercial menhaden operation in his favorite inshore fishing grounds. Franklin is at war with Omega Protein, the last major menhaden fishing operation. While Omega Protein has a monopoly on the menhaden reduction fishery, provides products that are easily procured through other methods, and should be more strictly limited, the author’s personal war against them makes him a poor choice for writing an unbiased book about the fishery, its history and its future. Franklin has however contributed to the field by collecting together narratives, historical articles and several scientific papers together in one easy to read tome. In the future this book can provide a “jumping off” point for a future historical ecologist to work from.