How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World

Anders Halverson provides an exhaustively researched and grippingly rendered account of the rainbow trout and why it has become the most commonly stocked and controversial freshwater fish in the United States.

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Comments

[jfwells]

Was thinking of checking this out but I saw the publisher's comments:

Publisher Comments:
Anders Halverson provides an exhaustively researched and grippingly rendered account of the rainbow trout and why it has become the most commonly stocked and controversial freshwater fish in the United States. Discovered in the remote waters of northern California, rainbow trout have been artificially propagated and distributed for more than 130 years by government officials eager to present Americans with an opportunity to get back to nature by going fishing. Proudly dubbed an entirely synthetic fish by fisheries managers, the rainbow trout has been introduced into every state and province in the United States and Canada and to every continent except Antarctica, often with devastating effects on the native fauna. Halverson examines the paradoxes and reveals a range of characters, from nineteenth-century boosters who believed rainbows could be the saviors of democracy to twenty-first-century biologists who now seek to eradicate them from waters around the globe. Ultimately, the story of the rainbow trout is the story of our relationship with the natural world--how it has changed and how it startlingly has not.

I certainly hope the author knows a bit more of the range of rainbow trout than the person at the publisher that tried to write a summary of the book.

[MarcP]

I don't have any issues with the publishers summary. I believe Rainbow trout may have been first discovered in Russia (Kamchatka); however I do know that some of the most popular strains that have been stocked throughout the US and the globe are of N. Californian origin and I believe that is what the publisher/summarist was trying to convey in the sentence you highlighted. I recently read an excerpt from the book and thought it was quite good; I'm looking forward to getting a copy in the mail this week.

[sam]

Obviously rainbows have a wider range than Northern Cali, and Halverson knows their native range runs from Kamchatka to Mexico. Reading the book, however, you learn that it was the McCloud River rainbows that became the backbone for the hatchery work of the United States Fish Commission, led by folks like Spencer Baird and Livingston Stone. Halverson's book is an excellent read, very informative, astutely researched, and told in a wonderful narrative. If you are interested in fish, fishing, or American environmental history, this is a must read.