Saving stripers

E: The Environmental Magazine, Nov-Dec, 2005 by Jim Motavalli

In 1982, when there were only an estimated 4.6 million I striped bass in American coastal waters, the nation's commercial fishermen were insisting that this prized game fish needed no special treatment, that they could rebound on their own despite an annual catch that routinely took juveniles and pregnant females.

They were wrong: It took a tough management plan and careful rebuilding for the striped bass to come back in historic numbers. Last year, there were an amazing 56.7 million striped bass available for sport fishing and commercial harvest. The heartening story of striped bass recovery is told as an edge-of-your-seat suspense thriller by veteran environmental writer Dick Russell, who was there. In Striper Wars: An American Fish Story (Island Press, $26.95), Russell goes back to 1964, and little-noticed plans to build a Hudson River hydroelectric plant, which just coincidentally, would have decimated a huge striped bass hatchery. The hero of the battle against that plant, Robert Boyle, went on to found the Riverkeeper organization and lead the fight against PCBs in the Hudson River. Russell himself was a key player in what became a hard-fought struggle, and he deserves our thanks not only for his activism but also for this excellent book.