On long, wing-like fins the Atlantic bluefin tuna carve their way through the ocean depths. Their speed almost rivals their size, making these amongst the most powerful and energetic fish in the ocean. The largest of the tuna species, they can reach a whopping 13 feet long and weigh up to 2000 pounds.
One tuna among these giants, affectionately named Amelia after Amelia Earhart, was the catalyst for Karen Pinchin’s Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas. Amelia was caught 3 times in her life; twice she was tagged and released along the Atlantic coast of the United States and the final time in the Mediterranean Sea. Pinchin follows tuna from Rhode Island to Nova Scotia to Madrid to Tokyo, weaving together the stories connecting humans to these fish and showing how people’s lives have been changed by the phenomenon of the Atlantic bluefin tuna.
School of bluefin tuna. // credit: United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization/ Danilo Cedrone, US Fish and Wildlife Service
Al Anderson, a charter captain who spent the majority of his life in Rhode Island, was a prolific tagger of fish. His chartered trips were not about conquest in the traditional sense. The clients on his boat – The Prowler – did not go home with 300 pound bluefin tuna. Instead, Anderson devoted his career to tagging fish, serving as a steward of fish populations across the north Atlantic coast. Anderson’s lengthy career was founded on encouraging sustainable fishing, documenting his fishing excursions, writing books and newspaper columns, and tagging thousands of fish. In one day, Al and his clients could tag and release up to 55 juvenile bluefin tuna, saving one mature tuna for dinner. Amelia, the tuna Pinchin features in Kings of their Own Ocean, was one of the nearly 5000 tuna tagged on The Prowler. Anderson caught Amelia in 2004 when she weighed only 10 pounds and released her back into the water.
Molly Lutcavage, a scientist in Massachusetts tagged Amelia a second time in 2007. This was a rare feat. Lutcavage said it felt “like Christmas” to catch a fish that had been previously tagged. In a 2015 acceptance speech of an award from the International Game Fishing Association’s Hall of Fame, Al Anderson highlights the significance of this: “Releasing tagged gamefish was, and still is, one of the biggest thrills that I’ve ever had, simply because it offers the possibility, thanks to tagging, of increasing our scientific knowledge about migratory gamefish behavior.” By expanding efforts and technologies related to fish tagging, scientists could compile widespread data involving the migratory patterns and lifespans of crucial species that were previously misunderstood.
Like many Atlantic bluefin tuna, Amelia’s life ended in a fishing net in 2018. However, just like many legends, her death did not end her story. Thanks to her tags, Amelia’s death offered insight into the lives of Atlantic bluefin tuna. During her life, Amelia had crossed a boundary that had thought to be impossible: she crossed the 45 degree west meridian line. This line, bisecting the East and the West of the Atlantic ocean and separating the bluefin tuna stock in two, had been used since the 1970’s to ignore the need of international legislation to protect bluefin tuna. Amelia, by migrating across this regulatory boundary imposed upon her, was herself another whistleblower showing that this was not just an issue for local jurisdictions.
The 45 degree west meridian line is now considered arbitrary when regulating many migratory ocean species, especially so in the case of bluefin tuna. Originally drawn to separate the legal rights to fish certain populations of tuna, and also to avoid the responsibility for overfishing, it is now understood that tuna unite hundreds of thousands miles of ocean. This is just one example of the legacy left behind by the rapid development in fisheries technology. Throughout the decades of innovation, measures have been approached by many countries on both sides of the Atlantic to strike a balance between commercial interests and the protection of species. Unfortunately, as the fishing industry grows globally, regulation lags behind. The casualties aren’t human, they are the hundred of thousands of pounds of fish discarded as a result of mass over-harvest, they are the populations fished to collapse for profits.
Despite being fished to near collapse year after year since the 1980’s, bluefin tuna remain a prized fish. Valued for fatty, flavorful flesh, bluefin tuna sell for eye-popping prices in fish markets. At the beginning of 2023, a 467 pound tuna sold for $275,000 USD in a Japanese fish market. Prices this high not only drive the “luxury” craze of bluefin tuna, but also encourage fishers to do anything to chase that profit.
This economic drive was not invented in one day. An example of this greed is the 1971 bluefin tuna hustle of fisherman Frank Cyganowski’s partnership with a Japanese mega-cargo ship. Cyganowski would sell locally caught Atlantic bluefin bought from local fisherman to Japanese seafood wholesalers for a 100% markup, filling a ship built to hold 272 tonnes of frozen cargo. The next year, even more Japanese ships came to Cyganowski, this time offering 200% higher profits than the previous offer. This was just the beginning.
Al Anderson holding a juvenile Atlantic bluefin tuna. This fish may well have been Amelia. // Courtesy of Jason Williams, Karen Pinchin
Kings of Their Own Ocean is a great read even for those unfamiliar with the salty decks of fishing boats or the shouts of a seafood market. Pinchin’s writing combines the history of fishing regulations with the stories of those who have been fascinated by the Atlantic bluefin for centuries. Her analysis reveals the dire state of our fisheries, due to mismanagement from the 19th century to the present day, with worrisome implications for the future. But Pinchin has hope, inspired by Amelia and the many other fish she encountered in her reporting, that bluefin tuna can prevail in the battles they fight every day. Uniting science, history, food, and biography with compelling investigative journalism, Pinchin creates an engaging and powerful narrative that explores the past, present, and future of Atlantic bluefin tuna.
‘Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas’
By Karen Pinchin Dutton.
Penguin Random House, July 18, 2023. Hardcover: 320 pages