Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession, and the Future of Our Seas

by Karen Pinchin

**THE INSTANT INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER**

This is a tale of human obsession, one intrepid tuna, the dedicated fisherman who caught and set her free, the promises and limits of ocean science, and the big truth of how our insatiable appetite for bluefin transformed a cottage industry into a global dilemma.
 
In 2004, an enigmatic charter captain named Al Anderson caught and marked one Atlantic bluefin tuna off New England’s coast with a plastic fish tag. Fourteen years later that fish—dubbed Amelia for her ocean-spanning journeys—died in a Mediterranean fish trap, sparking Karen Pinchin’s riveting investigation into the marvels, struggles, and prehistoric legacy of this remarkable species.
 
Over his fishing career Al marked more than sixty thousand fish with plastic tags, an obsession that made him nearly as many enemies as it did friends. His quest landed him in the crossfire of an ongoing fight between a booming bluefin tuna industry and desperate conservation efforts, a conflict that is once again heating up as overfishing and climate change threaten the fish’s fate.

Kings of Their Own Ocean is an urgent investigation that combines science, business, crime, and environmental justice. As Pinchin writes, “as a global community, we are collectively only ever a few terrible choices away from wiping out any ocean species.” Through her exclusive access and interdisciplinary, mesmerizing lens, readers will join her on boats and docks as she visits tuna hot spots and scientists from Portugal to Japan, New Jersey to Nova Scotia, and glimpse, as the author does, rays of dazzling hope for the future of our oceans.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, Nature, Animals, History, Audiobook, Environment

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2023

About the author

Trained as a news reporter and cook, Karen Pinchin is an investigative journalist and creative non-fiction instructor based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. She specializes in writing about food systems, culture, and social justice. Kings of Their Own Ocean (2023) is her first book.

Reviews

[Alysa Czenze · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, but read like a biography. I wish it was more focused on the fish instead of the lives of the people who were involved with the fish. Loved the chapter about tuna in NS

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kings of Their Own Ocean by Karen Pinchin is an epic Nonfiction book about the bluefin tuna, its habitat and food, reproduction and life cycle, fishing, industry, swimming formations, crime, environmental concerns and conservation. It is also about selling and buying the fish to eat and the waxing and waning of meat demand with corresponding prices. The Ancient Greeks were so in awe of the fish they stamped their images onto coins. In more recent decades, the fish sold cheaply, though now commands huge prices.

In 2004 Al Anderson, a charter captain caught a particular fish and tagged a bluefin; called Amelia, she was again caught (this time she died) in 2018 after thousands and thousands of kilometers of sea travel back and forth between Nova Scotia and the Mediterranean. Anderson had a fascination for these muscular creatures which must keep swimming to be able to breathe and was instrumental in conservation groundwork. Parts of the book focuses on his life, his trials and his death, particularly how they related to the bluefin. The author also includes anecdotes about her life, her family and her link to this stunning creature. One of the stories which stands out most in my mind is Jacques Cousteau swimming alongside them. What an experience!

What I enjoyed most was absorbing the turbulent history and facts about the bluefin tuna. The amount of information in this book is staggering and much will stick with me as a thalassophile.

My sincere thank you to Knopf Canada and NetGalley for providing me with an early digital copy of this fascinating book.

[Ginny Zeng · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karen Pinchin's "Kings of Their Own Ocean" dives into the journey of Atlantic bluefin tuna. The main character, Al Anderson, is a dedicated fisherman-turned-scientist who tags tuna. It also includes Amelia, a fish he tagged in New England, was found once again in the Mediterranean. This novel is a journey of the scientific and personal side of aquatic life.(Focusing on Tuna, obviously)

Pinchin does an amazing job balancing the person and scientific, which gave me a more in-depth look into overfishing. Before this, I didn't think overfishing was such a huge issue. The novel also highlights how climate change affects Tuna and other fish in the ocean. It was also fun to imagine and picture in my head. Pinchin was able to write and describe the environment vividly, making it easy to feel the breeze of the Atlantic ocean.

While the book's writing was vivid and fun, sometimes it wandered into Anderson's personal life. It distracted me from the main narrative and the message the book was supposed to serve. However, it remained engaging and passionate which is why it was so distracting.

I recommend this book, whether you care about Tuna or not. If I'm being honest, I picked this up because I liked the cover, but I'm happy I did. Now I'm aware with the consequences of overfishing and climate change in aquatic life.

[Gemington · Rating 5 out of 5]

TW: overfishing, endangered species, globalization, global warming

What a fascinating and infinitely readable book. This is the kind of science writing for the masses that we need so much more of! It made me feel informed and supported as I built my knowledge with this book. The author is a wonderful and humanizing portrait of the bluefin tuna and the industry that surrounds them. It will make you admire the characters and spirit of this book. Amelia, Al, and even the author herself are so vivid. Oh and the Moonies! So fascinating. And she is a Haligonian!!!! OMG.

[Dorothy Mahoney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Near the end of the book, Pinchin writes," It wasn't just a story of one fisherman and a single fish, but a story about the whole world, of contested science and corruption of the miracles and terrors of globalization and its goddamned children: commodification and the perils of human hubris, in driving a species to its absolute limit even as our warming climate transforms the ocean at a dizzying pace." That sums up the book nicely. The fisherman was Al Anderson, who won awards for his
enterprising work tagging thousands of Bluefin tuna during his charter fishing days. The fish (Amelia) was a tuna tagged and caught twice before being shot in the head in a fish net and sent to
the Japanese market. The book contains photos including one of the world's largest Bluefin tuna
caught in Nova Scotia in 1979. It weighed 1, 496 pounds and was probably 25 years old. A sad story.

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was really accessible and engaging, even for someone who doesn't read a lot of Science and Nature non-fiction. Pinchin does a masterful job of using the story of one tuna, Amelia, who is tagged three different times in different places around the world, to interweave so many different narratives concerning the fishing industry, global politics, and environmental issues.
An immense amount of research went into this book, but Pinchin also includes details of her own personal narrative, and how it dovetails with the people she met while writing the book. A beautiful and passionate debut!

[Vincent Sabourin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good read on an interesting subject. Pinchin does a good job hooking you in emotionally and keeps you interested throughout, even if it does go a little too much into the weeds in terms of technical and historical information of the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna trade.

The “characters” she writes about are passionate and driven. They all speak plainly to the message Pinchin wants to communicate; one that her main subject, Al Anderson, spent his entire life advocating for: we must be weary of our impact on this planet and its oceans. They do not belong to us.

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

more nova scotia centric than i could have ever thought

[Dana McCallum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Justice for Amelia

[Briella · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think that if I could have a tuna listen to any song it would be Sympathy is a Knife by Charlie XCX and Ariana Grande. Listening to it now as I write this and I am fully convinced Ariana’s verse was written by a tuna. “It’s a knife when they’re counting on your mistakes….when you’re so pretty they think you must be fake…when they dissect your body on the front page.” That’s so tuna.

[Sophie M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Caitlin got me this book and I loved it!

[Aurora · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was fine. Glad I’ve finally finished. I hadn’t realized this was 1-part tuna, 1-part some guy you’ve never heard of’s biography, which made the beginning sections drag for me (kept wondering “why do we care about this random guy??”). Also felt like she was far too nice when talking about the cult. And sometimes fell into personifying the fish in a way I found cringy. But I guess it’s an impressive amount of research, even if I didn’t particularly appreciate the way she was telling it.

[Susan Strickland · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a poetic and literary stroll through the tale of humanity's relationship to the Atlantic bluefin, a fish the author describes as 'a grand piano shaped like a nuclear missile.' Partly an anthropological history of human interaction with the bluefin tuna, partly a biography of influential biologist and tuna tagger Al Anderson, we meet the bluefin in pre-WWII New England, in pre-historic Mediterranean caves in ancient Rome and Greece, in the late 20th century era of the environmental treaties, and in Reverend Moon's Unification Church in the 1970's.

Al Anderson was a friend of the bluefin his entire life, preaching conservation and encouraging fishers to not to harm the fish; he tagged many thousands in his lifetime, and taught others how to handle the tuna without shocking or bruising them, and his efforts directly contributed to scientific knowledge about population status, spawning habits, and migration behavior, as well as inspiring future generations to continue studying and protecting the species.

Pinchin introduces the scientific work of other fish biologists and conservationists, illustrating how scientific tracks run parallel to each other — sometimes contradicting and sometimes converging — and so do policy tracks concerning conservation and economic development, particularly when respective scientists with differing agendas produce different findings, or when policy figures like catch quotas or MSY ('maximum sustainable yield') are presented as a substitute for scientific data.

A journalist with a lifelong relationship to the seas, the author presents emotive human narratives about the bluefin’s conservation status, bringing the reader to the vessels, the ports, and below the surface alongside the mighty tuna itself.

[Enid Wray · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating story of - primarily - one man’s life and efforts to save bluefin tuna.

Oh how I wish I had had this as a resource when I was teaching my World Issues courses way back when. Chock full of data - facts and figures about populations, geography, annual catches, and everything else you’d expect - this really serves to underscore the toll that the 'advancements' like advent of factory fishing, and the exportation of sushi worldwide to name but two - took on all fish stocks, not just the tuna.

For a policy wonk like myself I enjoyed the discussion about how the rules - like the UN Law of the Sea, and catch quotas - came to be. Some of the behind the scenes information goes beyond what I had access to back then as an individual/teacher… but does not surprise me at all.

While this is a clarion call about the broader environmental devastation we as a species are perpetuating upon the planet as a whole.

Thanks to the publisher and Edelweiss for granting me early access to a digital review copy.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book. Although focusing on Atlantic tuna stock(s) [there is a management controversy about how many stocks there actually are], it details some common themes in fisheries management: (1) policy makers ignoring the science to set quotas higher than recommended, (2) the fishing community insisting the stock isn't in as bad a shape as the fishery managers say it is, and (3) petty fights among the scientists from different countries that are involved in management of tuna which all leads to overfishing. The author makes this all more interesting by sharing the personal stories of people actually involved in the fishery (anglers - both sport and commercial, scientists, policy makers, and fish brokers). Interesting fact, at one time fishing companies controlled by Reverend Sun Myung Moon and his Unification Church were major players in the tuna business all because the reverend liked to fish for them!

[Andrew Chandler · Rating 1 out of 5]

Life is too short to waste on non-great books, and this is one of those books I ditched after a day of reading.

The author doesn’t spend much time on the details of bluefin tuna, but rather the people and ecological impacts around them. And while I’ve read many single-animal-centric books whose focus on the surrounding characters work (both "H is for Hawk" and "The Book of Eels" are examples where the authors intertwine their own lives into the story beautifully), this book didn’t have whatever I needed to finish the whole thing. Plus, the book felt very "agenda-ish." Promoting the noble savage myth and questioning women in the fishing industry who wanted to be called “fishermen” (a gender neutral term to them but not the author) made me feel that, however correct her assertions were, this book was going to be focused on telling, not explaining. Better books out there.

[Shannon Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was methodically researched. You feel her passion through each word, phrase, paragraph and chapter.
I’m from Wedgeport, NS, so I was specifically interested in the mentions of my home. I am disappointed that no Acadian fisherman were mentioned. I didn’t like seeing the village described as “lacking modernization”, which I thought was her way of saying backwards / poor.
This book is about the plight of tuna, king of the ocean. They should be thriving but because of greed, have been reduced to a mere afterthought, a side character in their own story. She mentions Amelia here and there, but this book is about the people and their fight to save tuna, an amazing and complex species.
It shines a light on finding the balance with conservation and commercial fisherman’s need to make a living.

[Lucy · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I ever eat tuna again, I’ll be thinking seriously about the food in front of me. This book is more about fishing for tuna than it is about the tuna itself. There was a time not so long ago that there were plenty of very large tuna that were hunted for the thrill of the sport. No one really wanted to eat them, so marina owners sometimes paid to have someone with a tractor bury them. Then came sushi, and a Japanese airline looking for return-flight cargo, and the Moonies. Before anyone knew what to do about it, tuna numbers sank dramatically. Bring in the scientists and the politicians. Things appear to be improving, but I think that for now I’ll need to stick with farmed salmon on my plate.

[Rhonda Leanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't know I would find tuna so interesting, but Karen Pinchin really brought the world to life with her well-researched storytelling. A large portion of the book followed the life of Al Anderson, a fisherman who was instrumental in starting the tagging and tracking of blue-fin tuna, which led to changes in the management of resources and efforts to preserve the species. Al was a very interesting character, and his story provided a good through-line to the book.

Listening to the audio book, read by the author, was one of the reasons I enjoyed the book so much. You could feel her passion for the topic and the people involved through her words. It was like sitting and listening to someone share their passion with you over coffee.

[Miki · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't mind the biographical information interspersed throughout this dark account of how tuna are overfished, hunted, killed, and transported around the world. Also, I'm not surprised that the Japanese market is the culprit of a lot of the crime, bribery, and senseless killing and overfishing of tuna.

If you're interested in geopolitics, global marketing, environmentalism, conservationism, and/or marine life, this book could be for you.

So shocked I even finished a book recently with my track record in October and November. Babies take up a lot of your free time. Who knew? Lol!

[Audiobook, borrowed from the library]

[Laurie Burns · Rating 4 out of 5]

So pleased to have finally read this book of excellent non fiction-
“Kings of Their Own Ocean: Tuna, Obsession and the Future of our Seas” by @karenpinchin - Dartmouth represent! A loving and well written narrative of the tuna industry, the history, the conservation and the life of those who make their living from tuna. I loved the local connection, (hey Wedgeport), the fascinating history into sushi and oddly enough the connection of tuna fishing to Korean church leader Sun Myung Moon. Karen provides history in a passionate way, with enough personal history and background of the major players that the book is humanized and feels in parts like a memoir and bonus - I learned so much!

[Katie Worth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not even into fishing but I enjoyed this book and learned a great deal about the wild and shady world of blue fin fishing. Good characters, including a gargantuan fish named Amelia that makes a journey blowing apart experts' understanding of the species. Every time I see blue fin on a menu I find myself gushing to my dining companion about the fascinating lives and times of these beautiful, massive and imperiled fish.

[Diego Zata · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is an interesting book, but in my opinion, it feels more like a book about humans around tuna than a book focused on the fish.
I was expecting more scientific data related to the fish, and despite the fact that it describes some of tuna’s life, migration, rearing, growth, spawning and other interesting facts, it’d be great if those aspects were more descriptive because it feels a little short.

[Jacques Poitras · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd give this six stars if I could. Karen Pinchin uses an uncanny coincidence - the catching of the same fish three different times, over the span of many years and even more distance - to tell an amazing story of food, conservation and global capitalism. This book asks all the important questions of the twenty-first century and they are posed with great care and wonderful prose.

[Rob · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not the book I expected. I guess I was hoping for a work that would focus more on the species and the science behind the extinction debate. Instead, this is a book of human stories centred around the bluefin. It’s not that I’m unsympathetic towards the story of Al Anderson, but he’s just not what I picked up the pick.

[Lynda Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned so much about the tuna industry with this fact filled book. The book is a great tribute to many who helped protect and educate us on tuna industry. Thank you Daryl for letting Karen interview you on Al. His story was critical to the storyline of the book. I will never look at tuna the same again.

[Jack Delaney · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great writing, great reporting — the chapters on the Moonies and Wedgeport were crazy — but it doesn't quite pull all the threads together by the end. Felt like two books (one about Al + grief + the personal lives of the characters, the other about tuna policy) fighting each other for full attention.

[Nelson Chan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kings of Their Own Ocean speaks on the impact of overfishing that has devastated the bluefin tuna populations over the decades. An interesting piece of research that carefully explains what goes on behind the scenes that tuna lovers don’t know about. There were a few instances that seemed unnecessary to the overall idea of the story but still entertaining to read nevertheless.

[Mark Stephens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book about the saga of the blue fin tuna and how overfishing of many species could be the plight of many ocean fish’s if we don’t continue to do something right now and in to the future. One man Al Anderson. Of Block Island Rhode Island could have been the catalyst to save this species?
Good read very interesting stuff too! 👍

[Lindsay Patterson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall Interesting. Didn’t realize it would be more of a biography, would have enjoyed more focus on tuna history, biology etc. However the parts that were interesting were really interesting!! The part abt wedgeport and about the international tuna organizations (didn’t know that was a thing!) more of a 3.5 star all in all