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were estimating the number and size of tuna to check whether they had gone over or under

the quota or under the minimum size. After the counting was finalised, the transferal

concluded with a lunch at Giuliano’s. The tonnarotti ate in their quarters, maintaining the

social and physical division between the workers and the owner. While Giuliano prepared the

food – a tuna tartare, tuna cappaccio, bottarga slices, pasta with bottarga, tomato, onion,

tinned tuna and lightly seared tuna steaks – the professional roles of those at the table were

suspended or joked about. The scientific observers mingled with Javier, the rais and head of

divers, and they joked that they did not know what they were eating, alluding to the conflict

of interest on their plates and with others in the room.

The transfer was a window into the situations in which expertise comes to matter within

sustainability practices, both the expertise of fishery scientists and also the expertise of

fishers. In relation to the pulling of nets or reading the weather to choose an appropriate day,

the rais and other tonnarotti were the experts. They were also involved in some aspects of

monitoring the tuna, albeit not only for complying with quota. For example, the rais with the

help of divers used the specchio to monitor the nets to spot tuna and non-tuna species caught

in the net. The specchio may have also served the purpose of ascertaining whether there were

enough tuna in the trap to conduct a mattanza. As demonstrated through the anecdote of the

transfer, the specchio now functions for the additional purpose of complying with quota.

However, the expertise of the tonnarotti as well as their monitoring of tuna ends with the

closing of the net and the official tuna count and size estimation. In analysing expertise and

knowledge practices in the contemporary tonnara it pays to remember that the transfer and

the specific configuration of experts, technologies and techniques is a new configuration for

the tonnara, with new knowledge practices, such as those established to estimate tuna.

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