The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America

In this brilliant portrait of the oceans’ unlikely hero, H. Bruce Franklin shows how menhaden have shaped America’s national-and natural-history, and why reckless overfishing now threatens their place in both. Since Native Americans began using menhaden as fertilizer, this amazing fish has greased the wheels of US agriculture and industry. Today, one company - Omega Protein - has a monopoly on the menhaden “reduction industry’. In Franklin’s vibrant prose, the decline of a once ubiquitous fish becomes an adventure story, an exploration of the US political economy, a groundbreaking history of America’s emerging ecological consciousness, and an inspiring vision of a growing alliance between environmentalists and recreational anglers.