Books about Fishery from Amazon.com

You probably enjoy eating codfish, but reading about them? Mark Kurlansky has written a fabulous book--well worth your time--about a fish that probably has mattered more in human history than any other. The cod helped inspire the discovery and exploration of North America. It had a profound impact upon the economic development of New England and eastern Canada from the earliest times. Today, however, overfishing is a constant threat. Kurlansky sprinkles his well-written and occasionally humorous history with interesting asides on the possible origin of the word codpiece and dozens of fish recipes. Sometimes a book on an offbeat or neglected subject really makes the grade. This is one of them..
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“Many brave hearts are asleep in the deep, so beware, beware,” goes the chorus of an old sailors’ sing-along that celebrates the allure and danger of the seafaring life. But make no mistake–there truly is much to beware for those who are drawn to risk their lives and seek their fortunes upon the waves. And perhaps none take more chances than the men and women who brave the tempestuous, bountiful waters of the Bering Sea. Season after season, they bond and battle with its icy depths, determined to reap yet one more rewarding harvest while eluding the ever-present threat of sudden, certain death. And among the rapidly diminishing ranks of these die-hard salts, brothers Andy and Johnathan Hillstrand have forged a reputation as fierce masters of their treacherous, enthralling trade. If you’ve watched their exploits on TV’s Deadliest Catch, you’ve only scratched the surface. To read Time Bandit is to step into their skins, smell the sea air, feel the frigid wind, and know with all your senses the exhilarating, and terrifying life on the edge.

Natives of tiny, fishing hamlet, Homer, Alaska; sons of a hard-bitten, highly successful fisherman; and born with brine in their blood, the Hillstrand boys couldn’t imagine a life without a swaying deck underfoot and a harvest of mighty Alaskan king crabs waiting to be pulled from the ocean floor. In pursuit of their daily catch, the brothers brave ice floes and heaving waves 60 feet high, the perils of 1000-lb steel traps thrown about by the punishing wind, and the constant menace of the open, hungry water.

Even the brothers’ downtime on land–where the deadly realities of the unforgiving sea are never far from their minds–is lived as if borrowed: fast and hard, haunted by the knowledge that the next season at sea could end asleep in the deep.

Here is the Hillstrands’ own heartfelt hymn to the brutally hard, gloriously independent, and mysteriously soul-satisfying life that has earned them their daily bread and defined their existence. By turns raucous and reflective, exhilarating and anguished, enthralling, suspenseful, and wise, Time Bandit chronicles a larger-than-life love affair as old as civilization itself–a love affair between striving, willful man and inscrutable, enduring nature..
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Know Your Tuna

• Tuna is the most popular food fish in the world. It is eaten raw, cooked, in sandwiches, in salads, and in catfood
• The total worldwide tuna harvest is four million tons.
• In the past, tuna fishermen in the eastern tropical Pacific set their nets around dolphins, which resulted in the deaths of tens of millions of dolphins.
• There are many kinds of tuna, but the most popular for the Japanese sashimi market is the bluefin, one of the largest of all fishes.
• The largest bluefin tuna ever caught weighed 1,496 pounds.
• The most expensive bluefin tuna was a 440-pounder that sold at the Tsukiji fishmarket in Tokyo for $173,600.
• Almost all of the bluefin tuna caught by commercial fishermen goes to Japan.
• The Japanese import 800,000 tons of tuna every year. (That's right: eight hundred thousand tons.)
• At the Tsukiji fishmarket in Tokyo, an estimated 1,000 bluefin tunas are auctioned off every day.
• Is there mercury in tuna? Yes. Is it at levels dangerous to humans? Not unless you eat tuna three meals a day.
• Many scientists consider the tuna the most highly-evolved fish in the world.
• Bluefin tunas, along with mako and great white sharks, are the only "warm-blooded" fishes; they can elevate their body temperature as much as 25 degrees above the water they swim in. This makes them particularly effective as predators.
• Bluefin tuna can swim 55 miles an hour. They can migrate across the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, then turn around and do it again.
• MIT scientists built a robot tuna in an attempt to replicate the incredibly efficient swimming performance of the living fish. They failed.
• The bluefin tuna, and to a lesser extent, the yellowfin, are among the most sought-after of big-game fishes. Celebrated anglers like Zane Grey, Ernest Hemingway, and Phillip Wylie wrote ecstatically about their pursuit of giant tuna.
• Aquaculture ("fish farming") now accounts for 40% of the world's fish consumption.
• Tuna ranching now takes place in every country on and in the Mediterranean, and in Australia and Mexico as well. It is scheduled to begin in Hawaii and Alaska.
• Because of commercial overfishing, almost exclusively to feed the insatiable Japanese sashimi market, all populations of bluefin tuna are endangered.
• Overfishing in the Mediterranean has caused such a drop in the bluefin tuna population that the World Wildlife Fund has called for a complete halt to all tuna-fishing there.
• If we cannot learn to breed bluefin tuna in captivity, the great fish will become extinct, writing finis to commercial and recreational tuna fishing--and to the consumption of maguro sashimi in Japan.
• In March, 2008, an Australian company called "Clean Seas" succeeded in getting captive bluefin tuna to spawn. If they can raise them to market size (200-300 pounds), it may relieve the pressure on wild-caught fish.

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Meteorologists called the storm that hit North America's eastern seaboard in October 1991 a "perfect storm" because of the rare combination of factors that created it. For everyone else, it was perfect hell. In The Perfect Storm, author Sebastian Junger conjures for the reader the meteorological conditions that created the "storm of the century" and the impact the storm had on many of the people caught in it. Chief among these are the six crew members of the swordfish boat the Andrea Gail, all of whom were lost 500 miles from home beneath roiling seas and high waves. Working from published material, radio dialogues, eyewitness accounts, and the experiences of people who have survived similar events, Junger attempts to re-create the last moments of the Andrea Gail as well as the perilous high-seas rescues of other victims of the storm.

Like a Greek drama, The Perfect Storm builds slowly and inexorably to its tragic climax. The book weaves the history of the fishing industry and the science of predicting storms into the quotidian lives of those aboard the Andrea Gail and of others who would soon find themselves in the fury of the storm. Junger does a remarkable job of explaining a convergence of meteorological and human events in terms that make them both comprehensible and unforgettable. .
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*0-8053-4582-5, Nybakken, James and Bertness, Mark, Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach, Sixth Edition//-->Marine Biology: An Ecological Approach, Sixth Edition approaches the subject of marine biology by emphasizing the ecological principles that govern marine life throughout all ocean environments and by acknowledging the differences between marine and terrestrial ecosystems. This unique approach adds real-world relevance by exploring how organisms interact within their individual ecosystems while also focusing on the significance of human impact on the sea. Marine Environments, Plankton Communities, Oceanic Nekton, Deep-Sea Biology, Shallow-Water Subtidal Benthic Associations, Intertidal Ecology, Meiofauna, Estuaries and Salt Marches, Tropical Communities, Symbiotic Relationships, Human Impact on the Sea For all readers interested in marine biology and marine ecology.

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Fishes, as the largest group of living vertebrates, offer almost unlimited opportunities for the study of evolutionary adaptations to environmental and biotic selection pressures. The book covers basic fish anatomy, physiology and phylogeny, but the major theme of the book is evolution. For example, What has been the effect of evolutionary pressures on the form and function of fishes? Pitched at the undergraduate market, this book will serve as a core text for ichthyology courses offered by wildlife and fishery departments..
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This book provides a comprehensive and current source of information on fishes—including systematics, zoogeography, behavior, and conservation of fishes—that is often needed by professionals as background for writing accurate reports. This book covers the structure and physiology, evolution and taxonomy, zoogeography, and ecology and conservation of fishes. For fisheries biologists, conservation biologists, and aquatic ecologists that need an up-to-date reference on Ichthyology.

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