The Western Flyer: Steinbeck's Boat, the Sea of Cortez, and the Saga of Pacific Fisheries

In 1940, John Steinbeck and his friend marine biologist Edward Ricketts chartered the fishing boat Western Flyer to collect marine specimens in the Sea of Cortez located between the Baja California peninsula and the Mexican mainland. The diversion of the Colorado River to irrigate agricultural land instead of flowing into the sea was about to change the sea's environment. Steinbeck's The Sea of Cortez, coauthored with Ricketts in 1941, describes the marine life of the area and includes a catalog of species. Using the subsequent career of the Western Flyer, Bailey (NOAA Alaska Fisheries Science Ctr. Senior Scientist) chronicles its use in the sardine, Pacific Ocean perch, tuna, Alaska king crab, and salmon fisheries along the Pacific coast. As fish populations of each species became depleted, the boat was adapted to the next. Overfishing, the use of bottom trawlers, the consequences of dams on rivers, environmental degradation on land, and competition from Japanese and Soviet factory boats contributed to the collapse of each fishery. Interspersed with quotations from Steinbeck, as Philip Hoare's The Whale references Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, this well-written book will appeal to readers concerned with fishery conservation and the importance of fishing to the local economy.