Almadraba - Images from Spain's ancient tuna hunt

"It always begins this way...always with the silence and the smoke" Just after the first full moon in May, a ritual more than 3000 years old starts anew on the Mediterranean coast of southern Spain. The Almadraba - an ancient tuna hunt largely unchanged since the days of the Phoenicians and still a vital part of the small coastal villages in economically depressed southern Spain as well as to the world's seemingly unending need for more fish to consume. And fitting for Spain, the Almadraba could be viewed as the aquatic equivalent of a bullfight...except with hundreds of bulls rather than just one. Fishermen use an elaborate system of nets and mazes to corral a heaving sea of Bluefin tuna that individually can weigh as much as 1200 pounds. As the boats pull closer together, and the trapped fish are lifted to the surface, these men jump into the nets amidst a roiling scrum of thrashing giants, often delivering the finishing blow with a knife to the gills as the huge Bluefin are hoisted onto waiting boats. It is an intense and visceral experience, filled with violence and celebration and finally exhaustion.