Against the Flow

Abstract

I n THE DAYS FOLLOWING my encounter with the right whales, I spent a lot of time doing very little—very little, that is, other than staring out over the waters of Cobscook Bay from the deck of my friends' home in Lubec, Maine. Silvery-gray terns flew back and forth, carrying little fish they had caught to some distant islet where their insatiable chicks were waiting to be fed. Simultaneously, crews of men buzzed across the bay each morning in motor- boats, tending to a dozen or so cages anchored in the water. Each cage contained tens of thousands of Atlantic salmon. These fish farmers were working hard to provide fresh salmon to a growing human population with a growing appetite for seafood. It eventually dawned on me: both they and the terns were in the same business.