Tonnara

''Mattanza'', literally 'slaughter' or 'killing' in Italian, also known as ''Almadraba'' in Spanish and ''Almadrava'' in Portuguese, is a traditional tuna fishing technique that uses a series of large nets to trap and exhaust the fish.

There are ''mattanza'' traditions linked to Trapani in Sicily, the Egadi island of Favignana, and Carloforte and the Isola di San Pietro in southwestern Sardinia, as well as locations in Spain, Portugal and Morocco.

History

The practice of ''Mattanza'' is an elaborate and age-old fishing technique for trapping and catching Atlantic bluefin tuna that can be traced back to the Phoenicians.

While it is unclear how the technique was spread around the Mediterranean basin, it was also imparted to areas such as Iberia during Iberia's Islamic period.

The Spanish derive the term ''Almadraba'' ( pt, Almadrava) from the Andalusi Arabic word ''al-maḍraba'' (), meaning 'a place to strike' (Arabic root: ''ḍaraba'' (), meaning 'it struck, hit'). The introduction in Sicily and Sardinia, but not mainland Italy, is also either attributed to the Moors, during Sicily's own Islamic period or by the Spanish afterwards.

Traditional mattanza

From March the tuna schools migrate through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean to visit their spawning grounds.

From May onwards, fishermen drive schools of fish in straits into a system of nets (known in Italian as ''tonnara''), that form various chambers. The tuna are guided through the chambers, which are being drawn closer and closer together, to the inner chamber (southern Italian: ''càmira dâ morti'', literally "death chamber"), from which they are then lifted onto the fishing boats with grappling hooks. The tuna caught is processed on land directly in the ''tonnara'' (from ''tonno'', meaning "tuna").

Traditional Italian locations for the ''mattanza'' include Trapani, Favignana, Capo Passero, Formica, Bonagia, Scopello, Castellammare del Golfo, San Vito Lo Capo, Portopalo and Capo Granitola and in the Sardinian locals of Sant'Antioco and Carloforte.
There are other locations in Andalusia, Murcia and Valencia in Spain, Algarve in Portugal, and in Morocco.

Falling fish stocks and decline

The bycatch contains, among others, bullet tuna (Auxis rochei), little tunny (Euthynnus
alletteratus), Atlantic bonito (Sarda sarda), bigeye tuna (Thunnus obesus) and swordfish (Xiphias gladius). However, the Atlantic bluefin tuna yields of the ''mattanza'' are constantly falling due to the overfishing of the stocks, so that the ''mattanza'' is more of a tourist event today.

In Italy, in 2003 and 2004, it could no longer take place in Trapani. The schools of tuna had already been fully fished beforehand by international fishing fleets long before they approach coastal areas were they can be caught with the ''mattanza'' traps. The last slaughter in Sicily took place in the Favignana trap in 2007. In 2015, only one slaughter took place in Sardinia, between Portoscuso and Carloforte. The Ministry of Agricultural, Food and Forestry Policies still authorizes six fixed traps in Italy every year: Flat island and Cala Vinagra (Carloforte), Capo Altano and Porto Paglia (Portoscuso), Favignana, Camogli.

In film

* Roberto Rossellini's ''Stromboli'' includes documentary shots of the ''mattanza''
* Rupert Murray's '' The End of the Line (2009 film)'' demonstrates almadraba when discussing declining catches
* Portuguese short documentary film ''A Almadraba Atuneira'', directed by Antonio Campos
* ''L'Ultima Tonnaro-Mattanza?'' (''The Last Tuna Catch/Massacre?''), a film by Philip Singer
* In the Hulu series “ The Dropout ” which chronicles the rise and fall of the startup Theranos, a character discusses La Mattanza

References

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Further reading

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Sicily
Sardinia
Fishing equipment
Fishing in Italy
Scombridae

{{fisheries and fishing