Stefan Lovgren

Told by Zeb Hogan, written by Stefan Lovgren, this is a fantastic book. While it took me a bit to get to it, I'm kind of glad since I'm ending the year on a high note. Hogan is engaging, committed and intelligent. Lovgren does a great job bringing that all across. Even though Hogan's tales of big fish disappearing is a bit disheartening, he keeps positive about it, which I agree is needed when it comes to the possibility of a turnaround for any of these species. Hogan's efforts over the decades to save these "monster fish" from extinction is commendable and I hope this book reaches a wide audience. The message is important and the book manages to be really entertaining while getting that message across.… (altro)

The whale shark is the largest marine fish but what is the largest freshwater fish? Zeb Hogan, the host of National Geographic’s Monster Fish, sets out to discover the answer. His search takes him around the world as he studies various fishes and their environments.

We are introduced to fish with odd names such as goonch, Dolly Varden, flannelmouth sucker, alewife and the alligator gar which has lots of teeth and eggs that are poisonous to humans. There is also the fossilized Leedsichthys problematicus which may have been the largest fish that ever lived.

The narrative skips about in time and place which disrupts the flow. Hogan travels from the Mekong to the Amazon, to the Colorado River, the Yangtze and the Danube, the Eg and Ur Rivers in Mongolia, hoping to capture, measure, tag and release the world’s largest freshwater fish.

He recounts watching, in Albi, France, as wels catfish attack pigeons that venture into the water to drink. The catfish hurl themselves at the birds, there is a flurry of feathers, and somehow the bird evades capture. The pigeons didn’t seem to learn and soon return, even the one that narrowly survived the encounter. This continues for hours although the catfish don’t catch any birds. It almost seems as if they were playing a game rather than trying to get a meal. A hundred pages later Hogan mentions the pigeon-feasting fish again. So, were they successful hunters, were they failures, or were they just having a day of fun?

Later chapters are mostly about the effects of damming rivers which prevents fish from reaching their spawning grounds. Climate-induced droughts and pollution also take their toll. In the last pages Hogan’s team captures, weighs and releases a record-breaking freshwater fish but Hogan is not there to witness the event. At least Guinness World Records documented it. The book includes twenty photographs and an index.… (altro)