Almadraba

Almadraba (Spanish "tuna fishing" or "netting fence to catch tuna") is an elaborate and age-old Andalusian technique for catching Atlantic bluefin tuna that dates from Spain's Islamic period.

The Spanish word almadraba is of Andalusian Arabic origin المضربة almaḍraba : 'a place to strike' < Arabic root ضرب 'to strike, hit'. Besides the region of Andalusia, it is also historically practiced in the southern Spanish regions of Murcia and southern Valencia, on the Mediterranean coast. A similar technique exists in Sicily known as mattanza (a borrowing from the Spanish word matanza, meaning slaughter), introduced either by the Spanish or by the Moors during Sicily's own Islamic period.