The almadraba is a fishing gear used to catch bluefin tuna during their annual migration to the Mediterranean. This type of fishing activity includes, in addition to nets, a set of boats strategically arranged to catch them.

Historical notes

The origins of bluefin tuna catching date back to the Phoenicians, who established some fish factories, especially bluefin tuna, all along the South Atlantic and Mediterranean coast. In Roman times, the importance of tuna fishing multiplied, with some of its production reaching the whole empire in the form of salted fish and, above all, garum, a condiment made from the remains of tuna.

From the mid-15th century and for 400 years, it was the Ducal House of Medina Sidonia that exploited the almadrabas in a monopolistic manner, with important socio-economic implications for the towns where they were fished. After 1817, the Ducal House ceased to have this privilege, and after liberalisation, there was an explosion in the number of almadraba farms all along the Andalusian coast and even in the Spanish colonies on the western coasts of Africa.

In 1929, the Consorcio Nacional Almadrabero (Almadraba National Consortium) was created, which returned to the monopoly of the exploitation of the almadrabas and the processing of the tuna extracted from them. After the dismantling of the Consortium the traditional families of local traps businessmen reintroduced a model of exploitation and management of the traps that was closer to both the workers themselves and the towns where they were set.

In his Diccionario de las Artes de Pesca Nacionales, Antonio Sañez Reguart establishes three types of traps: the sight traps, the buche traps and the monteleva traps, the last two being very similar, as they are fishing gear fixed to the sea bottom with anchors.

The sight or shooting traps are the oldest. This is an active fishing gear based on encircling and trawling from the shore. Six or seven boats were arranged in the sea forming a kind of arch, waiting for a lookout from a watchtower to warn them of the arrival of the tuna shoal (hence the name ‘sight’).

Fixed traps (buche and monteleva) are passive gear for catching tuna. The trap is fixed so that tuna can enter the chamber, the clarity of the water being very important, as the fish seek the safety of clear waters to protect themselves from predators. Once the tuna are in the chamber, the manoeuvre to pass the tuna into the copo (codend) must be very precise. To do this, the fishermen wait for the tide to turn, so that the waters are practically still to facilitate the work from the boats. At first, two boats are positioned at the head of the chamber and push a net that takes the tuna from the chamber to the buche (third section of the net), to then be helped by two boats positioned on either side of the buche that will again push the tuna towards the bordonal (second section of the net) where, finally, two more boats will take them to the copo awaiting the levantá (lifting).

Preparando el copo. Photo: Aniceto Delgado Méndez. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Levantá del atún. Photo: Aniceto Delgado Méndez. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

4. Levantá del atún. Photo: Aniceto Delgado Méndez. © Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico

IAPH image under the conditions established under license cc-by 3.0 de Creative Common. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/

Delicia gastronómica. Atún. Andalucía. Turismo y Deporte. www.andalucia.org

El Mundo. (2022). Comienza la ancestral pesca del atún rojo de la Almadraba. [Video File].

Reference:
Instituto Andaluz del Patrimonio Histórico. Victor Gañán Álvarez, Atlas del Patrimonio Inmaterial de Andalucía. Fase 3. Zona 2. La Almadraba de Barbate, 2012.