When the last Salmon Leaps | 2020 Modern Huntsman
Extract:
"Dawn was hours from breaking when I crawled into my bunk, hunkered down in the belly of the boat. The consistent, low engine hum and gentle sway ushered my weary mind into a parallel realm. To the west, the North Atlantic Ocean stretched for over 2,000 miles toward where the Labrador Sea crashed into the Newfoundland coastline. A journey north would trace the migration route of our native Atlantic Salmon toward Greenland and their marine feeding grounds, but we were headed east, an eight-hour steam from the Outer Hebrides, leaving Barra for the Scottish mainland."
Extract:
"Ultimately, conservation is a determination of value trade-offs in resource use; choice is the nexus of conservation and societal morality, and we lean on science to inform these decisions. Politics, on the other hand, is the gatekeeper of change, wrestling with competing value ideals. Through the United Nations’ sustainable development agenda, this acknowledgement is clear, identifying three pillars of sustainability as economic, societal and environmental. Development should consider all three and accept a trade-off between them."
Extract:
"In the face of such moral and ethical corruption, the outcome toward conservation is uncertain at best. We should be cautious of emphasizing islands of protected biological abundance, which cannot function in the long term without dynamic spatial reserves of an integrated human landscape. Only now are we understanding the biodiversity implications of banning indigenous cultural burning practices in North America, a restriction which followed the clearing of people from the land. In this volume, Lindsey Davis chronicles how fire exclusion not only dismantled cultural integrity, it fundamentally shifted the ecological state of ecosystems."
Extract:
"The precipitous loss of salmon populations in my home rivers casts a looming shadow of an ominous future; how does one conjure flames from the embers of such loss and failure? But nurture the vestiges of our broken wild communities we must, because community encompasses more than human-centered interactions."
The Islands and the Whales | 2021 Modern Huntsman
Extract:
"The battle drums of the north Atlantic Ocean groan loudly, stirring from the belly of warm currents pushing up to the Arctic, clashing unapologetically with the Norwegian Sea as these two mighty bodies of water meet the Faroes. The sprawling oceans are the sustaining lungs of this string of 18 major islands, breathing life into this seafaring nation. Myth and magic are embodied in the swelling waters. They offer up and take souls with equal indifference; these people are forged from the cauldrons of the deep."
Extract:
"In the cool, gray hue of failing light, weather-worn men marched along the clifftops, their lights flickering in the darkness. Slinging themselves toward the watery abysses below, an arm-thick rope supported each soul down the rocky faces, as the same woven fibres had done for 30 years. When Mike joined on the first evening, he became the first outsider to document the harvest. This old-world snapshot conjures an appreciation for the efforts and collaboration required to survive, along with an uncomfortable underlying feeling born from the rawness of dispatching juvenile birds from their nests."
Extract:
"The primary targeted species in the Faroes is the long-finned pilot whale, which are the second-largest member of the dolphin family; the orca, or killer whale, being the biggest. Size varies between sexes, with males weighing up to 2300kg (5,000 lbs), measuring 6.7m (22 feet) long. The yearly average harvest of 800 whales comes from the eastern North Atlantic ocean population of an estimated 778,000. This is regarded as sustainable, with the species currently listed of Least Concern by the IUCN. There is currently insufficient data to allow an accurate global population estimate."
Extract:
"It is without question the most iconic, yet harrowing sequence of the documentary, as splatters of blood-stained ocean swirl between the writhing bodies, the commotion and the people’s elation and excitement palpable. In their sodden, claret hands, grappling hooks are driven through skin and blubber, dragging quivering bodies farther up the beach. The remaining members of the pod thrash in a helpless, contorted final effort as the last spines are severed. Slowly, the waters calm, people disperse, and the lapping, red wash of sea fades. The hunt is over."
