There have been plenty of times when I've been excited to read a book, only to find myself disappointed by it. Far less frequent are occurrences when I pick up a book, not expecting much from it, and actually end up enjoying it. Such was the case with Zeb Hogan's Chasing Giants: In Search of the World's Largest Freshwater Fish. Just glancing at it, I thought it was going to be simply a collection of sensationalized fishing stories about monster fish. Still, I'd been interested in learning more about freshwater giants ever since my visit to the Tennessee Aquarium, so I decided to give it a go. I was pleasantly surprised.
Dr. Hogan is research biologist from the University of Nevada, which seems like a funny place to be from when your life passion is giant freshwater fish. He frames his book around a very simple conundrum, inspired by a news story of a big catch that caught his eye. We know what the largest animal (blue whale), land mammal (African elephant), bird (ostrich), fish (whale shark), and so on are. Why do we not know what the world's largest freshwater fish is? A freshwater fish, in this case, is defined as one that spends its entire life in freshwater habitats, as opposed to one which may live in saltwater and occasionally venture into brackish water.
The resultant quest takes him around the globe, often as part of a National Geographic film crew (Dr. Hogan hosts the popular National Geographic series Monster Fish). A decent part of the book takes place in the Amazon, which will surprise absolutely zero people who spend any time in public aquariums - arapaima, arowana, pacu, and other South American river giants are extremely popular in zoo and aquarium collections, and, possibly (but not certainly) excluding native habitats, Amazon River displays are the most common geographic display of freshwater fish to be seen. And those chapters are nice enough. What I really enjoyed - and what I'd hoped to get out of the book - were the parts that dove into (pun intended) other freshwater systems that are less-commonly discussed.
Hogan takes the reader to the rivers of Western Europe, where wels catfish are one of the few giant freshwater species to expand their ranges, American bayous prowled by alligator gars, the steppes of Mongolia, home to giant salmon, and to the Australian Outback, where freshwater sawfish join crocodiles and sharks in the rivers. For each of these species, the author explains not only the natural history of the species, but how it has related to humans throughout history and how it fares in the modern world. Much of the book, however, focuses on the rivers of Southeast Asia and it is there that Dr. Hogan finds his true giant (the identity of which we'll keep secret here.)
Did the author document the world's largest freshwater fish? Maybe. It may very well be that, just downstream, there was a slightly larger fish of a different species. And maybe a slightly larger fish somewhere else in the planet. Who knows. I would say that the important thing isn't so much finding and tagging one fish of one species and putting a "World's Biggest" ribbon in it. Instead, the book (and the accompanying TV series, which I have yet to watch) can help call attention to an entire group of megafauna that most of us never even consider. Many of these giant fish are in serious danger of disappearing, whether through overharvesting, pollution, or habitat loss. At least one species that Dr. Hogan searches for - the Chinese paddlefish, spear-nosed cousin to our American paddlefish - is already likely extinct. Without conservation efforts, more are likely to follow.
There are indeed monsters in the rivers that this book takes us to. But they don't have fins or scales. They have two legs.
No comments:
Post a Comment