An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World
Where to buy An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World books online?
- ISBN13: 9780300140873
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Anders Halverson provides an very much researched and grippingly rendered account of the rainbow trout and why it has become the most commonly stocked and controversial freshwater fish in the United States. Learned in the remote waters of northern California, rainbow trout have been artificially propagated and distributed for more than 130 years by government officials keen to present Americans with an opportunity to get back to scenery by going fishing. Proudly dubbed an entirely synthetic fish” by fisheries managers, the rainbow trout has been introduced into every state and province in the United States and Canada and to every continent except Antarctica, regularly with devastating effects on the native fauna. Halverson examines the paradoxes and reveals a range of characters, from nineteenth-century boosters who believed rainbows could be the saviors of democracy to twenty-first-century biologists who now seek to eradicate them from waters around the globe. Ultimately, the tale of the rainbow trout is the tale of our relationship with the natural worldhow it has changed and how it incredibly has not.
(20100301)
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I must admit that I bought the book based on the take in. Indeed, rainbow trout beguiled me at a young age, and I have spent nearly 50 years watching, catching, and smoking these gorgeous creatures.
Sadly though, this book is just an arrogant hatchet job on a species which did nothing incorrect but attract the attention of humans. I reflect Anders Halverson has gone right out of his head over the issue of stocker trout. He equates them with environmental catastrophe sounding the clock radio that they have decimated endangered species like mountain yellow legged frogs. Fascinatingly, my 40+ years of hiking and fishing the Sierra Nevada have not drawn the same conclusion. For example, I was glide fishing Mono Creek last year and catching nice rainbows, all the while I had to watch where I stepped because there were endangered frogs in the same water. Frogs have also disappeared from lakes where rainbow trout have not been present, and the likely culprit has been determined to be a fungus that is being spread around the world by ecotourists and their muddy hiking boots. So much for evil rainbow trout. This environmental insanity continues to harm recreation, tourism, and the economy because as I write this review, it is illegal for Fish and Game, or anyone, for that matter, to plant trout into any body of water in the Eastern Sierra because of claims that it will impact the willow flycatcher, a tiny bird. How somebody made that tie is beyond my limited experience, I guess.
I suspect that these attacks on rainbow trout are more about the people who like to fish for them, than any real environmental concern. I can only imagine the disdain the environmental elite must hold for people who smoke cigarettes, drink beer, and use worms to catch stocker rainbow trout in the local stocked fishing holes. If these elitists like Anders could have their way, it would be illegal to hunt, fish, or wear camo in California. They assume the position of the environmental gestapo and use everything they have at their disposal to try and eliminate outdoor recreation that doesn’t suit their fancy. It really smacks of arrogance, despise, disrespect for fellow humans, and egocentricity. This book is sadly just one more example of the political discord in America that has become all too divided.
Long live the sluggo stocker rainbow mongrel! If it wasn’t for these fish, most children would catch nearly nothing in fresh water. The family tree tradition of camping, and catching a fish to supplement the family tree meal would be over. We will become a nation of video game morons, with no desire to experience the outdoors. This will do more harm to endangered species than anything, really, because a nation that no longer values its wild spaces, will auction them off to the highest bidder and they will be gone forever.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
The book is both a excellent read and provides, in some detail, a history and the resulting consequences of our attempts to manipulate scenery in the form of a manufactured replacement fish for the fresh water fisheries we ruin or attempt to improve. The leader is careful to provide the historic context under which decisions were made and to provide brilliant notes and a bibliography. The latter contains much hard to find information and is likely worth the book fee by itself. This book shoud be read by every thoughtful environmentally-concerned freshwater fisherman.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
When he was a high school student, my wife and I took Anders and his family tree fishing in our favorite British Columbia coastal river. He was already an accomplished fisherman, lover of the outdoors, and pleasant companion.
Two nights of reading are the equivalent of an brilliant college course in the history and propagation management of trout in North America. Particularly appealing is the effect “public choice theory” has had on this course of events. One of the leader’s principal points is that laws are enacted assuming the administrating agencies will act rationally and in the public excellent. In reality but, their staffs are led subconsciously and consciously towards ends which meet their own perceived needs and this has momentously influenced the process.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I know small about fish or fishing, but I know fisherman like to go for rainbow trout, a excellent fish to have at the end of your line or to have in your frying pan. The rainbow trout is establish all over our nation, and stands for conservation, and pure waters, and the gift of scenery when scenery is not trammeled by humans. Except that it does not really stand for any of these things. Maybe fisherman know all about this already, but for me, the revelations in _An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World_ (Yale University Press) were a surprise. The leader Anders Halverson is a journalist, and has a doctorate in ecology, and likes to fish. He has hunted all through past documents of government and conservation organizations, and interviewed plenty of researchers and others who have helped make the rainbow trout ubiquitous, or who are now trying to lower its range. This is not just a fish book. It is a carefully written history of how we reflect about our natural resources, and about the paradoxes and dangers of trying to control the natural world.
Rainbow trout are native to waters feeding into the Pacific, in an arc that extends up from northern Mexico, though the northeastern states, and over to far eastern Russia. That doesn’t matter anymore. They have been introduced to the Atlantic states, and in fact to every state. The only reason they aren’t in Antarctica is that there is a lack of trout streams there; they are now on every additional continent. A century ago, American fishing gentlemen were convinced that standing by a stream with rod and line was going to maintain our citizens’ virility and make our democracy stronger, but fish like the eastern brook trout were not able to withstand the pollution and privileged temperatures we were inflicting on our streams. These men shunned the bottom-feeding catfish. They simply needed a better trout, and the rainbow was it. The states with streams to be stocked thought this was all dandy. A recent report from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says that if you spend a dollar on growing and stocking rainbows, you can expect thirty-two dollars back in hotel reservations, rod sales, and airplane tickets. Everyone knows (now) that if you go a species into a region in which it did not evolve, you are liable to change things in unexpected ways. Though rainbows were regularly imported with the thought of adding their diversity to the local fauna, they have decreased such diversity overall. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has acted intentionally to decrease the diversity so that the rainbow trout could prosper. In 1962, the service deliberately poisoned sections of the Green River in Utah and Wyoming with “piscicide” to get rid of the pesky fish that lived there naturally. There were some complaints by academics and ecologists at the time, but the compound got dumped in the river, and the antidote that was supposed to be dumped downriver to neutralize it and keep it from heading on through National Parks properties didn’t get there, and so there was even more of an ecological disaster. This was made worse as a public relations matter because three weeks later Rachel Carson’s _Silent Spring_ was published, infuriating some constituents who would not let their representatives in Washington hear the last of it. There were four species of “trash fish” that were to be killed to let the rainbows in; all are now on the endangered species list.
Halverson’s book, but, is not shrill about the many preposterous and presumptuous tinkerings with the environment that have been done for the sake of bringing more rainbows to our streams. There are few villains or fools in this tale of the century since this unnatural fish has been taking over the world’s fresh water systems. Many of the public servants profiled here, whether their decisions were excellent ones or not, were taking steps based on the best information they had at the time, with the intention of helping anglers, and with no prospect of building any material gain by their actions. Halverson tells many connected tales here in a convincing and fascinating book, and generally refrains from building judgments or regrets. There are inherent paradoxes anytime humans try to take control of scenery. Fishermen may reflect that they are escaping from civilization by getting back to scenery to pursue their prey, but it turns out the fish that many are pursuing are mere products of industrialization after all.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I bought this book for my spouse who is an avid glide-fisherman. After he was done, he convinced me to read it. I don’t fish. But I LOVED this book. It’s such an incredible tale. So well written. And I learned so much about environmental history, US history, etc. I can’t recommend it enough.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5