Winner of the Paradigm Prize from the Science Writers and Communicators of Canada, the Evelyn Richardson Non-Fiction Award, the Margaret and John Savage First Book Award, and a Silver Taste Canada Award! Shortlisted for the 2024 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, the Eric Zencey Prize in Ecological Economics, and the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction.
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 dive into the marvels, struggles, and prehistoric legacy of this remarkable species.
Kings of Their Own Ocean is an urgent investigation that combines science, business, gastronomy, 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 journey 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.