Holding Back the Sea: The Struggle for America's Natural Legacy on the Gulf Coast by Christopher HallowellMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Hurricane Katrina was the eleventh named storm and fifth hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. It was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. This book came out four years before that but warned of such a behemoth and the damage to be wrought on ineffectual levees and in the absence of shock absorbing marshes. Removing marshes for oil development and shipping traffic and ending up increasing the hurricane threat to southern Louisiana is only one of the revealing and cruel ironies in this book. One is the "TED" turtle excluder device net gaps forced on fishermen which apparently is more effective at reducing their effectiveness and thus income than in saving turtles, as also covered in Caught in the Net: The Conflict between Shrimpers and Conservationists. Also examined is how spray painting fur coats helped led to mass starvation and suffering of over-populated nutria: "Protestors may not have fully considered the effect of their actions. Not only did they weaken the fabric of the marsh; the protests and a sympathetic media and public exposed the animals to more suffering than leghold traps ever could. So prolific are nutria that their population explosions can end in either mass starvation or mass disease. That is what happened as a result of anti-fur efforts. Few sights are more pathetic that that of mud-bedraggled nutria-all skin and bones, and fur falling off in clumps-staggering to a certain death...the result of kind but misdirected hearts." PETA would also not be bullish on the Tabasco scion, author of The Alligator's Life History, who thought nothing of forcing an alligator puncture his own skull with own teeth biting into thick steel. Edward A. McIlhenny also was instrumental in spreading the marsh-destroying nutria, once a storm freed his breeding population.
A fascinating book on environmental degradation through mis-ordered priorities, neglect, and a lack of accountability and cogent vision.
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