Kings of Their Own Ocean

May 15, 2023
Journalist Pinchin debuts with a competent examination of bluefin tuna and the humans working to save them. Her account focuses on Al Anderson, a Rhode Island skipper who tags tuna for an environmental group, and a bluefin named Amelia, who was captured first by Anderson in 2004 off Narragansett and again in 2018 by commercial fishermen near Portugal. Discussions of how Anderson’s tags help marine biologists study tuna enlighten, but background on his childhood and relationship with his wife feel superfluous. Pinchin fares better when she recreates Amelia’s peregrinations (“Amelia spent the season foraging for tasty sand lance cruised past the skeletal remains of barnacle-encrusted shipwrecks like the Heroic”) and explains how the fish’s migration across the Atlantic disproved the prevailing belief that tuna stay near the coasts where they’re born. Elsewhere, Pinchin delves into how the demand for sushi in the 1970s nearly pushed bluefins to extinction and how contemporary activism has contributed to more sustainable fishing policies. Though the surfeit of detail on Anderson’s life distracts, Pinchin provides a solid analysis of the far-reaching consequences of human action on marine life, noting, for instance, that excessive fishing of tuna can lead to the overpopulation of the crab and shrimp they prey on. This is at its best when it’s focused on the fish.