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first time, a wide overview of the many types of bluefin tuna traps (“almadrabas” sensu lato) used in several
Spanish sites, showing the diversity of gears included within the word “almadraba”. Here there is a selection of
various types of set tuna traps, from the most simple to the most complex one, including a “matanza” view
(Figures 19 to Figure 22).

The beach seine fishing was active, at least along the Spanish coasts until the XVIII century, and again two
painted documents held in the Archives of the Duque de Medina Sidonia (García García, 2012, López González
& Ruiz, 2012) show the details of this activity in southern Spain in the early part of the XVIII century (Figure
23), with two different ways of using these nets. Sañez Reguart (1791) also provided some interesting images of
other seines used for bluefin tuna: Figure 24 shows a tuna beach seine, which is a double seine used differently
from those shown in Figure 23; Figure 25 shows a typical tuna boat seine, operated by 5 vessels in coastal
areas.

3. Images in more recent times

The XIX century is a key period both for the books on traps and for the iconography. In this century, finally,
images and documents on traps are showing-up from several countries, documenting this important industrial
activity. This is also the period when the diffusion of traps showed a considerable improvement, with many new
traps in various areas (Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt and Turkey), possibly where they existed also in very
ancient times. The philosophy behind the new traps was to try to further intercept the tuna movements along the
coast, when they were travelling immediately before or after the spawning or even during the spawning period in
a few areas.

Finally, it was possible to better understand the diversity of tuna traps used in the Mediterranean Sea, in the
Atlantic Ocean close to Gibraltar, in the Marmara Sea and in the Black Sea, and this is really impressive. Of
course, it is difficult to provide all images in one scientific paper, due to space constraints, but it is always
possible to present a general overview of the various documents.

The bluefin tuna trap fishing activity in Italy in the XIX century and in the first part of the XX century is largely
documented, because Italians were deeply involved in this industry, owning traps in several Mediterranean
countries, and also having economic interests in some Atlantic traps (Manfrin et Al., 2012). This is the reason
why the two most comprehensive books on the bluefin tuna trap fishery in that period were written by Pavesi
(1889) and Parona (1919), who provided not only the first comprehensive map with the location of all tuna traps
(active or inactive) in the Mediterranean, in the area close to Gibraltar, in the Marmara Sea and in the Black Sea,
but also an extensive overview of the many types of traps used in various countries.

An interesting etching of the tuna traps in S. Giorgio (northern Sicilian coast) in the early XIX century (Di
Santo, 1971; Salmeri, 2008), shows that two different types of tuna set traps were used in the same location,
sometimes at the same time or one after the other during the fishing season. This image (Figure 26) shows three
small set traps and one traditional set trap used along a small portion of the southern Tyrrhenian coast. It is one
of the very few images that clearly informs about this practice which seems to have been used in several places
in Sicily, at least between the end of the XVIII and in the XIX century. The use of two or more traps belonging
to the same owner, in the same location, is rarely mentioned in the many books describing the bluefin tuna
fisheries, while such use sometimes appears in the logbooks of the trap or in the sales notes of the trap material.
Figure 27 shows the main set trap of San Giorgio as it was at the beginning of the XX century (Gamberini,
1916).

The complexity of some traps since 1800 is well demonstrated by the scheme of the large bluefin tuna set trap of
Magazzinazzi (sometimes reported also as Magazzinacci, the Italian version of the original Sicilian name), an
important tuna trap located West of Trapany (South-western Sicily) (Parona, 1919; Sarà, 1983, 1998). Close to
this trap, there was another famous large one, the tuna trap of Bonagia, which was active until the second part of
the XX century (Figure 28) (Pavesi, 1898). These large trap nets, sometimes extented far from the coast, were
very costly, due to the large number of ropes and anchors required, which implied a considerable number of
workers to set the structure at sea. In these last two centuries, the iconography of Italian bluefin tuna traps was
enriched by a lot of technical details, far better describing the gear components and the many names of the
various parts, including the vessels (Figures 29 to Figure 32). The small traps, usually called “tonnarella”
(Figure 33) (Pavesi, 1898), were present in several places along the coast, but their distribution still needs
further investigation; the last one is still active in Camogli, in the Ligurian Sea close to Genoa (Mariotti, 2003,
2005, 2007; Cattaneo Vietti & Bava, 2009).

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