Edited by Bruce B. Collette and Grace Klein-MacPhee
Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press
This bible of fish identification was first issued in 1925, written to a large degree by William W. Welsh, and finished by the young fisheries biologist Henry Bigelow after Welsh’s untimely death. Bigelow made his life’s work the investigation of the marine fauna of the Gulf of Maine, and in 1953, together with William C. Schroeder, revised and reissued the remarkably comprehensive and destined-for-classic-status Fishes of the Gulf of Maine. The book went through numerous reprintings, first issued as US Government Fishery Bulletin #74, Volume 53, and later reprinted by the Harvard Univ-ersity Museum of Comparative Zoology.
These classically red bound tomes have been carried by generations of fishery scientists on research vessels, along the shore, into laboratories, and onto fishing boats as the primary guide to identification and characteristics of virtually any fish that could come from inside the 150-fathom curve of the waters of the Gulf of Maine.
Due to popular demand, and no doubt also to the large number of deteriorating, salt-stained and scale-flecked 1953 reprints, including my own, Fishes of the Gulf of Maine has recently been revised and reissued by the Smithsonian Press. While the content and illustrations are preserved, much has changed in the Gulf of Maine, and often for the worse. Groundfish populations have been severely reduced by commercial fishing, coastal areas have been developed, and populations of large pelagic fishes, such as bluefin tuna, have dwindled in many areas where summer sightings used to be fairly common. This new edition has additional text in many of the species sections, reflecting newfound scientific knowledge as well as describing the fate of these stocks since the 1950s. The most directed passage on the decline of many of these species is a history of the fisheries and current status of the most commercially important species, which has been added to the introduction. This descriptive section at the beginning, while not taking any stated position, made clear to me that one significant mission of this latest edition was to be a work supporting the rebuilding of this great resource, in much the same way that one mission of the original was to make the resource under the waves known and accessible to commercial harvest.
Crisp etchings of the animals and concise and evocative written descriptions of the original book are complemented by detailed outlines of ranges and habits, written in an engaging style that combines specific historical sightings with compelling anecdote, managing to make the lives of these deepwater creatures come alive without stripping them of their mystery and drama. The book has been to many, including myself, not only a valuable field guide, but also at times a welcome and entertaining friend during long hours at sea. Building on a readable yet informative format, this edition has taken an informative and often-used book and truly built upon it. Without losing the appeal to the quick referencer, it manages to convey more information on food habits and current status of the population along with the comprehensive descriptions. This is truly one of those rare items, a real improvement on an already fascinating and comprehensive classic, and promises to be a valuable reference for those working in the science of fish, or even anyone just interested in what lies beneath the waves, well into this century. We can only hope that the next edition, many years from now, can start with a revised introduction describing not the decline, but instead the rebuilding of the stocks and the industry that came to pass in the first part of the 21st century.