Ted Ames is a man who has made it his life's work to study the big picture, one story at a time. Or one fish stock at a time, one fishing community, or even one fisherman. His inventive research earned him the 2005 MacArthur Award—the so-called Genius Award—and funding to continue his work.
Ames spoke with Bowdoin Associate Director of Academic Communication Selby Frame about big fish, little fish, and an ingeniously simple plan that could help crank up New England's devastated commercial fishery.
He said, "today, the whole northern shelf of the Gulf of Maine, nearly the size of George's Bank hasn't had a viable groundfish fishery for 25 years. Mostly because the fish are gone. While overfishing was a major contributor to the collapse, there are undoubtedly other reasons why this has happened. Learning what the missing parts are may help the effort to restore the fish stocks that once made New England fishing grounds notoriously productive."
Read the entire story with his full interview from Bowdoin College.