Otter fishing

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An otter retrieves a fish. Detail from the Carta Marina of Olaus Magnus from 1539.

The otter fishing is the traditional catch of fish with the help of tame and trained otters . This fishing method has been developed in various parts of the world since the 6th century and is still practiced to a small extent in Bangladesh today, with two to four leashed otters driving the fish into the fisherman's net.

History and geographic features

Otter fishing used to be common in various areas on several continents, including Central Europe, North Africa, Great Britain, Scandinavia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and China.

China

In ancient China, the otter wore leather straps around his body, which were connected to the fisherman's boat or to a bamboo pole with an iron chain. The fisherman cast his circular net with weights around the perimeter. While the net was being hauled in, it was the otter's job to find fish from their hiding places and drive them into the net. A good catch gave the otter a reward.

The earliest written evidence comes from the Chinese Yangtze River region during the Tang Dynasty (618–907). In India the otter fishery was carried out on the Indus and Ganges , in Bengal and southern India along the Coromandel coast . Marco Polo reported about otter fishing in the 13th century.

Europe

Otter fishing was used in Europe from the 16th century, in Scandinavia, for example, for trout fishing. Olaus Magnus (* 1490; † 1557), the archbishop of Uppsala, published a sketch with an otter fisherman in his book De Gentibus Septentrionalinus (History of the Nordic Peoples) in 1555 . One of the motifs in his map of Scandinavia, Carta marina , published in 1539, shows an otter who has caught a fish for the fisherman while it is already standing on the fire with a knife in his hand. Olaus Magnus describes that the otter often catches the fish for the fisherman, but forgets what he has learned from time to time and eats the fish himself.

Otter fishing was also known in England, Scotland, Germany and Poland. It was first mentioned in writing in 1480, and in 1653 the method of training otters to fish was described by Izaak Walton . Izaak Walton described in 1653 how three 3–4 month old pups were tamed and trained. The otters wore a muzzle to prevent them from eating fish, and the fishermen led them on lines to drive the fish that lived in a pond into a net. Another method was to sink the nets first and then drive the fish with the otters into the nets, after which the nets with the otters and the catch were recovered. British sport fishermen who served in British India have occasionally brought trained otters to England from there.

America

There are also reports of otter fishing from Central and South America. The creation story of the Maxacali people in Brazil refers to it because there the otter was given the three largest of the fish it caught to eat. Guyana fishermen used a different tactic, watching where a wild otter landed its catch and later ate it themselves.

Bangladesh

Otter fishing, Bangladesh

In southern Bangladesh, otter fishing is still carried out in the Narail and Khulna districts and in the Sundarbans . In the past, Lutra lutra and Lutrogale perspicillata were used for otter fishing, but today only the latter. Otter fishing takes place mainly at night between 9:00 p.m. and 5:00 a.m. Around 4–12 kg of fish, crabs and crabs are caught per boat per night. Feeroz et al. counted a population of 176 tamed captive otters in 2011, of which 138 worked in 46 fishing teams. The lack of fish, social change and more economical forms of fishing have drastically reduced the number of otter fishermen.

species

In Eurasia, two types of otters are particularly suitable for otter fishing: in Europe and North Africa the European otter ( Lutra lutra ) and in South Asia and China the Indian otter ( Lutrogale perspicillata ).

literature

  • EW Gudger: Fishing with the Otter . In: The American Naturalist . 61, No. 674, May 1, 1927, pp. 193-225. JSTOR 2456673 2456673 .

Web links

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Trianni, Francesca: Otters Have Helped Bangladesh Fishermen Catch Fish For Centuries . Time.com. March 27, 2014. Retrieved April 23, 2014.
  2. ^ A b c Frederick J. Simoons: Food in China: A Cultural and Historical Inquiry . CRC Press, November 12, 1990, ISBN 978-0-8493-8804-0 , pp. 342-343.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Otto Gabriel, Klaus Lange, Erdmann Dahm, Thomas Wendt :: Fish Catching Methods of the World . John Wiley & Sons, April 15, 2008, ISBN 978-0-470-99563-1 , p. 33.
  4. ↑ a b Map Section F. (of Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus) . In: James Ford Bell Library . University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. University Libraries. Retrieved April 22, 2014.
  5. ↑ Jonathan W. Warren: Antiracism and Indian Resurgence in Brazil . Durham [NC]: Duke University Press, 2001 ISBN 0-8223-2741-4 , pp. 1-4 link
  6. ↑ MM Feeroz, S. Begum and MK Hasan: Fishing with Otters: a Traditional Conservation Practice in Bangladesh . In: Proceedings of XIth International Otter Colloquium, IUCN Otter Spec. Group Bull . 28A, 2011, pp. 14-21.