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killing to be released to the outside world’ (Moody 2012, para. 4). The Free from Harm
website also reported on the investigation, stating that ‘Animal Equality recorded and

photographed both the natural behavior of tunas underwater, and the plight of the bluefin

tunas who are brutally killed every Spring in Italy’ (Free from Harm 2012, para. 2).

Tuna as welfare, tuna as livelihood: tonnara fishing communities

Fishermen are quite aware of how some outsiders often view their work. Locals are also

aware of animal welfare issues. For example, in a less hyperbolic manner over a coffee, a

local on the island outlined some of her concerns about the mattanza and expressed her

ambivalence towards the different fishing techniques. The mattanza is a bit cruel, she said,

before adding that the sea cage is twice as cruel. Her husband reminded her that this is the

cruelty of our contemporary carnivorous appetite and also exists in other forms of meat

production. Comparisons of this kind, to other forms of animal rearing and slaughtering, were

a common way for tonnarotti to explain their work and respond to animal welfare discourses.

Some tonnarotti also felt ambivalent towards the mattanza. For example, Goilardo Rivano (a

tonnarotto from Carloforte) recalls that initially, and still even now, he feels sad about killing

tuna. He continues: ‘it isn’t a nice thing...but the tonnara is my work...I’m now able to see the

tuna as a farmer would the cow, the sheep’ (G Rivano 2013, pers. comm. 18 June). Raising

the point that calling the mattanza cruel while turning a blind eye to commercial farming is

hypocritical, he says:

Ok if you want to close the tonnara, then close the tonnara, but also close the
battery farm chickens, close also the . . . . Unfortunately we need to eat tuna, cow
and everything else, and it’s always been this way. (G Rivano 2013, pers. comm.
18 June)

Clemente, a former tonarotto from Favignana, was also aware of animal cruelty discourses.

He says that ‘many people say that it’s gory, because there’s a lot of blood; it is a very bloody

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