Kings of Their Own Ocean

sac. Her tiny body quickly developed huge black eyes and a digestive system, including a disproportionately large, hinged jaw with a toothsome underbite. Over the next two weeks she grew needle-sharp teeth, a stomach, and gastric glands to eat and digest crustaceans, including the copepods and water fleas that made up her earliest diet. When she struggled to find food, she ate smaller bluefin larvae to survive. By 25 days old, she had developed a swim bladder and a notochord, or early backbone, and started to swim with other centimeters-long bluefin her own size. They ate any fish smaller than themselves, evading predators and growing larger, eventually following their species' annual outward migration westward to the Atlantic's cold, nutrient-rich waters.

Sometime between her birth and 2004, Amelia accomplished her first feat of long-distance swimming, crossing the Atlantic Ocean's entire breadth before arriving off the coast of western Rhode Island. As she matured, she was on track to beat the odds, becoming one of only two of her fellow 30 million fertilized bluefin tuna eggs to make it to full-grown adulthood.

As Amelia cruised the waters off Rhode Island, it was a day like any other. But it was also a day for fishing.


A handful of kilometers away, on that same dark, predawn September 2004 morning, Al Anderson s hulking black truck sped along the paved road that dead-ended into Narragansett s Snug Harbor. Its headlights flickered between birch and alder, darkened homes and mailboxes, blurring them into stop-motion. Al had waved goodbye to his wife, Daryl, who flapped back from their porch with her dish towel, and he couldn t wait to get fishing. Driving down the steep pitch toward sea level, tall, anvil-headed Al, with a wiry mass of black hair and his trademark trimmed mustache, parked into a prime pull-through parking spot beside a drooping tree. He killed the gas and stepped down, eyes scan

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
 
"In Kings of Their Own Ocean, Karen Pinchin has brought vigor and pathos to the human relationship with the inhabitants of our oceans and what this complex relationship means for the future of the planet." Alicia Kennedy, author of No Meat Required

Strap in to your deck chairs and prepare to land the story of several lifetimes. In Kings of Their Own Ocean, a church launches a global seafood empire, researchers feud, the tuna leap, and most of all, fishermen and citizen scientists manage to save a vital species, armed only with their wits and a few plastic tags. Pinchin s deep reporting and stunning prose ensure tuna will never taste the same. Lizzie Stark, author of Egg: A Dozen Ovatures

"Karen Pinchin's Kings of Their Own Ocean traces the fascinating story of Atlantic bluefin tuna from antiquity to the present. Vividly rendering not only the bluefin itself but also the interconnected lives of people obsessed with it, Pinchin lays out the stakes for the survival of this thrilling, magical species." Andrea Pitzer, author of Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World

A book that I love it s so well told, the characters and the history of these people and the history of how the oceans are managed. It s so well done, it s a great read. And it ends with a piece of good news, too. Chris Nuttall-Smith, food critic and bestselling author of Cook It Wild

"The descriptions of Amelia's undersea wanderings are where Pinchin's writing really comes alive, manifesting her passion for protecting all marine life. Booklist

Pinchin provides a solid analysis of the far-reaching consequences of human action on marine life. Publishers Weekly

Kings of Their Own Ocean enthralls, instructs and is a must-read for readers concerned about the future of our oceans and the creatures within them. BookPage

"Turns out a would-be biography of an Atlantic bluefin tuna can be riveting. Well, especially when you bring its unlikely two-time catcher into the mix and make it a story about the precarious state of conservation efforts." The Globe and Mail

Comprehensive exhaustive and engaging. Boston Globe

A cinematic triumph of narrative journalism Come for the most vivid descriptions of fish I ve ever read; stay for the perilous story of human obsession at the edge of scientific knowledge. Rendered with gorgeous, forensic precision, the book is a masterpiece of journalism and storytelling. Civil Eats

This volume will take its rightful place among the top shelf tuna classics and is a must-read for all obsessed with bluefin tuna. National Fisherman

Pinchin s prose calls to mind the likes of environmental greats Rachel Carson and John Vaillant... In Kings, Pinchin s protagonist, Anderson, goes against the grain as the angler who makes a point of releasing his catches back into the ocean. Maybe that, too, is Pinchin s mark: To leave you hooked for a spell, and then release you back into the world, both the same as you were and utterly different from before. The Coast

The people in Kings of Their Own Ocean are portrayed in all their rich human complexity, a quality that sets this book apart from many of the other nonfiction works focused on a single fish species. Science

Riveting [Kings of their Own Ocean] isn t just an ode to bluefin it s about humankind s obsession with them, a fixation as old as our species. Undark

A poignant and powerful look at a global industry bound to an ocean creature of incredible strength and beauty Worth a read? Absolutely. The Epoch Times

This decades-spanning tale of environmental justice presents the human side of tuna, as well as a look below the surface of the ocean at species very few of us truly understand but more of us should treasure. The Revelator, "5 Hot New Environmental Books"