In Pursuit of Giants: One Man's Global Search for the Last of the Great Fish

by Matt Rigney

Overview

For millennia the great fish—marlin, bluefin tuna, and swordfish—have reigned over the world’s oceans and awed human beings. Naturalists, photographers, sportfishermen, and writers from Zane Grey to Ernest Hemingway have been inspired by their beauty, power, and sheer size. But like much other marine life today, these fish face perilous reductions in their populations due to destructive and illegal fishing, inept fisheries management practices, and dramatic changes in ocean ecology, including those wrought by climate change. In Pursuit of Giants is a moving elegy and a call to arms for the protection of these creatures, as well as a five-year, 75,000-mile global adventure story that takes author Matt Rigney on a quest to discover how once-thriving species are now threatened. Rigney’s pilgrimage to encounter these giants takes him from the sportfishing mecca of Cabo San Lucas, to the Great Barrier Reef, from New Zealand to Nova Scotia, Japan and the Mediterranean, as he joins commercial and sport fishermen, marine biologists, fish-farming pioneers, and ocean activists to investigate the dangers these species face, and the various efforts being made—or not—to protect them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781512600674
Publisher:	University Press of New England
Publication date:	04/04/2017
Series:	Seafaring America Series
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

MATT RIGNEY is a native New Englander and has fished fresh- and saltwater for over forty years. He sailed aboard the Charles W. Morgan, the last remaining American whaleship, on its thirty-eighth voyage. His opinion pieces and articles have appeared in the Boston Globe, Orion, Bisbee’s Marlin World, and Huffington Post, where he blogs about commercial fishing, ocean conservation, and fish.

Table of Contents

Prologue 1

Book 1 Discovery

In the Kingdom of Sapphire Waters: Cabo San Lucas Mexico 13

The Harpooner's Last Stand: The Northeast Peak of Georges Bank 59

Book 2 Destruction

Introduction: Annihilation of a Fish 111

Whirlwind: Tokyo and Oma, Japan, Port Lincoln, South Australia 116

The Warrior in Malta: Greenpeace and the Battle in the Mediterranean 160

Book 3 The Primal Wild

Introduction: In Pursuit of Giants 205

Granders in the Coral Sea: Lizard Island, Great Barrier Reef, Australia 208

The Last Voyage of Primetime: Two Hundred Miles off the Coast of New Zealand 236

Epilogue 271

Solutions 277

Acknowledgments 287

Notes 295

Index 325

What People are Saying About This

Peter Matthiessen

“Like Carl Safina’s Song for the Blue Ocean, In Pursuit of Giants is not only informative but exceptionally well written and a pleasure to read, which should bring it the wide audience it deserves.”

Editorial Reviews

An avid fisherman, Rigney provides a glorious read in his examination of sportfishing and the imperiled state of ocean life. The vivid immediacy of this call to action ranges from majestic descriptions of a marlin’s oceanic journey and a Japanese fisherman’s outrageat government-industry collusion to fishing fleets’ devastation of marine life. Arguing that the extinction of much ocean life is highly possible within decades, Rigney’s passionate advocacy of conservationist ethics is imbued with direct experience and eschews simplistic bromides. As he claims that sportfishers can help sustain an economy and act as a pro-conservation force, he notes that partialsuccesses in reversingthe depletion of marine lifecannot offset the impact of commercial overfishing, indiscriminate slaughter ofbycatch,and dishonest reporting of catch and evasion of regulations. Portraits of traditional swordfish harpooners and their empathy for the fish they harvest act as a foil to impersonal large-scale fishing, and grant depth to the profession: “The opportunity to experience ocean wilderness and explore what it means to be human... is why many venture out on the sea in pursuit of giants.” The “awe and humility” felt in the presence of these fish is sensitively and powerfully wrought throughout this dramatic, transcendental tale. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Matt Rigney deftly navigates that symbolic tightrope between straight, fact-based narrative reporting and passionate advocacy….Rigney has crafted a smart, lyrical, passionate-but-not-too-preachy call to arms. In Pursuit of Giants should appeal to the recreational anglers who dream of catching 12-foot, 1,000-pound black marlin off the Great Barrier Reef and to conservationists and policymakers fretting about the permanent damage that has been wreaked over the half century….Rigney’s respect for many of his characters that make their living at sea and his near-spiritual connection to the big creates below resonates throughout.”

The Miami Herald

[An] entertaining and impassioned text with strategic suggestions for sustainable fishing.”

Booklist

A very important book; for any who cares about the sea, who cares about the planet and the future generations who will inherit it, who wonders at the mysterious power of the little remaining wilderness humankind has yet to rape and pillage, Rigney’s book is must-read…. A great fishing book, an adventure that leads the narrative into some of the most remote and hostile places on earth, chasing huge but increasingly endangered game fish that have animated the dreams of sport fisherman for more than a century.

The Valley Advocate

A damned wonderful read….I highly recommend this book.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

In Pursuit of Giants is a very timely and important book, impressively thorough in the extent of its research, including many eloquent interviews at sea with commercial fishermen whose traditional livelihoods, like the splendid animals themselves, are everywhere on the point of disappearance. Like Carl Safina’s Song for the Blue Ocean, it is not only informative but exceptionally well written and a pleasure to read, which should bring it the wide audience it deserves.”

Peter Matthiessen

In Pursuit of Giants is an exquisitely detailed love story, the tale of Matt Rigney’s love of the lions and tigers of the sea—the bluefin tuna, swordfish, and marlin that make sports anglers’ pulses race. It’s a love story colored with sadness from the unrelenting assaults on these fish from commercial fishing, tuna ranching, and even sports anglers themselves. But it’s also a story of hope—Rigney documents the efforts of men and women he met in his travels around the world, individuals who are trying to save these ocean giants. In Pursuit of Giants should inspire its readers to both love and defend its magnificent subjects.”

Ted Danson

[A] fascinating quest…. Suffused with passion for these great pelagic creatures. Muscular and lyrical by turns, Mr. Rigney’s prose deftly captures the wildness of the sea—the deep gleam of a shoal turning suddenly in the sunlight, the birdlike head of a striped marlin, spawning tuna “blazing their milky contrails.” Each section reads like a short story…. As this meticulous and engaging book demonstrates, we must change our mind-set lest we lose these giants.”

David Profumo

“Muscular and lyrical by turns, Mr. Rigney’s prose deftly captures the wildness of the sea—the deep gleam of a shoal turning suddenly in the sunlight, the birdlike head of a striped marlin, spawning tuna ‘blazing their milky contrails.’ Each section reads like a short story. Thumbnail character sketches abound, with the odd salty joke thrown in.”—Wall Street Journal

“An avid fisherman, Rigney provides a glorious read in his examination of sportfishing and the imperiled state of ocean life. The ‘awe and humility’ felt in the presence of these fish is sensitively and powerfully wrought throughout this dramatic, transcendental tale.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Rigney has crafted a smart, lyrical, passionate-but-not-too-preachy call to arms.”—Miami Herald

“ . . . a dramatic account that will appeal to the sportsman and conservationist alike.”—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

A sport fisherman's search for his game provides the backdrop to this exploration of the damage to the ocean's fish and animal stocks caused by large-scale commercial fishing operations. Rigney, a member of the International Game Fish Association, debuts with this personal investigation into the decline of big-game fish like marlin, swordfish and bluefin tuna. His travels took him to the Mediterranean, Japan, Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, Georges Bank off Nova Scotia, the Great Barrier Reef, and New Zealand. Occasionally fishing along the way, the author sought those whose love for the ocean and its creatures mirrored his own. Everywhere he traveled he discovered a similar story: Corporations entered an area, manipulated or ignored government regulations, and, using long lines and huge nets, laid waste to massive populations of sea creatures. Rigney documents the hideous collateral damage to what is called "by-catch"--in some parts of the world, five pounds of turtle, sea lion, porpoise and whale are killed and thrown back for every pound of shrimp caught. Mexico's Sea of Cortes, long a preserve for sport fishermen, has opened up to destructive long-line fishing. Rigney fished for swordfish in the fished-out waters of the northern Atlantic and visited Tokyo's fish market, which handles up to 10 percent of the world's catch each day. There he learned about the Atlantic bluefin tuna, whose Mediterranean breeding grounds have been pillaged for two decades. The author is afraid that the bluefin has gone the same way as the cod and the Atlantic salmon. In Australia, he met with people working on breeding bluefin tuna in captivity; a final swordfish hunt in New Zealand encapsulates his passion for the freedom and wildness of the ocean. A dramatic account that will appeal to the sportsman and conservationist alike.

Kirkus Reviews