Long, V-shaped eel traps cross from shore to shore on Italy’s Comacchio Lagoons, pointing like arrowheads out to the Adriatic Sea. When eels headed to their ocean breeding grounds arrive at the tip of the V, aluminum panels allow them into the trap, but not out. Metal replaced wood and reeds in the 1980s, but otherwise the design of the trap is the same as it has been since ancient times.
On a recent foggy morning at Comacchio, I met up with Stefano Gelli, who was clearing a trap in one of the lagoons’ northern basins. When Gelli was growing up, 40 years ago, a single night’s catch could total 10 tons.
“…Sixteen, seventeen…” Gelli grabbed tight onto the slimy fish and tossed them into a plastic tub, where they slithered over each other in slimy circles. “…eighteen, nineteen.” He threw in the last one….
Read the full article originally published at e360.yale.edu.