Justice and Natural Resources

Starred review from December 31, 2007
Franklin, a historian and author of more than 15 books (most recently Vietnam and Other American Fantasies
), was inspired by his passion for saltwater angling to write this history of the all but extinct menhaden, a fish that historically has served an essential part of the Atlantic coastal food web, including human populations (natives and settlers both). Integrating his own observations, Franklin spins a grim but compelling tale of the role menhaden play in maintaining critical near-shore habitats, their utility to early Americans and the collapse of their stocks over the past 150 years. Beginning in Maine during the latter half of the 19th century, the menhaden decline has accelerated alongside the nation's economic and technological growth, in particular the increasing sophistication of the fishing industry. Effects are widespread: as the menhaden population thins out, so have bass, bluefish, weakfish and other species, while estuaries suffer catastrophic phytoplankton blooms that create long-lived “dead zones†in which nothing can survive. This informative, riveting narrative exposes the greed, shortsightedness and unintended consequences that nearly destroyed the Atlantic coast ecosystem entirely, and continue to wreak havoc in the Gulf of Mexico. Franklin's final chapter provides a measure of hope, describing the happy but imperiled recovery of menhaden populations along New Jersey and New England coastlines.