Demon Fish by Juliet Eilperin

From The Week of July 17, 2011

If the 20th century was defined by the rise of technology and the singular role it played in fostering a global community, the 21st century will be defined by the environmental consequences of that technology. For our knowledge and our machines have allowed humanity to spread across the world in unprecedented numbers which, collectively, strain our planet's capacity to meet our demands. Though many species will be pushed to the brink of extinction as a result of our voraciousness, few, or so Ms. Eilperin argues in Demon Fish, are as susceptible as the shark.

In waters from California to Australia, from the shark callers of Papua New Guinea to the cooking pots of China, Ms. Eilperin delves into the history of the shark and our relationship with this most powerful predator. For hundreds of millions of years, since before there were dinosaurs, they have thrived in Earth's oceans, dominating this complex, underwater ecosystem without, as some species have, destroying it. But now that humanity has so successfully propagated, we've endangered the millennia-old preeminence of sharks: our pollutants soiling their food, our weapons reducing their numbers, our anthropogenic CO2 heating their waters. And so, hunted by fetishists and demonized by dramatists, they have been pushed to their limits, opening up the oceans to the kind of species imbalances not seen in millions of years.

Though Ms. Eilperin is careful to include fascinating details about the sharks themselves, their anatomy, their behaviors, their history, and their impact on the planet, Demon Fish spends twice as much time on the shark's bleak future as it does on its interesting past. In fretting over the heartless trophy hunters who catch them and the ritualistic fools who insist that their fins occupy their soup bowls, the author has sacrificed valuable pages that could have been devoted to the furthering of the reader's selachimorphic education. Instead, she has chosen to use her chronicle to shine a light on the extent to which sharks have suffered as a result of human cruelty. Exposing these ugly practices is a worthwhile goal and I come away enlightened to the repugnance of foods like shark fin soup, but Demon Fish is not billed as a polemic. It purports to be an exploration of sharks and their environment. It is, instead, activism contorted to fit into a work of popular science.

This is an enjoyable journey through the world of sharks. Ms. Eilperin has an engaging voice and a finely honed sense of injustice. Both play prominent roles in this worthwhile effort. However, I was looking to Demon Fish to educate me about sharks and the role they play in the animal kingdom beyond our shores, not to be ambushed by the extent to which they are being harmed by factors beyond my control. That this is more activism than it purports to be causes the scientifically minded reader to feel slightly duped. Still, quite the adventure and a worthwhile read. (3/5 Stars)