Ban on lamprey fishing lifted by Balearic Government effective August 25

BAN on lamprey fishing lifted by Balearic Government effective August 25 and the season will run until December 31.
There are up to 34 boats engaged in lamprey fishing, of which a total of 112,880 kilos were caught last year, which reported a total income of €547,200 and is particularly popular with specialist groups in Mallorca.
The the brotherhoods of Cala Rajada and Alcudia being the most important in terms of catches, but the OPMallorcaMar Producers’ Organisation regulates the catches of its members, establishing a maximum daily catch of 150 kilos of lamprey per boat.
Catches typically range from 80 to 120 tonnes in the total campaign, and by 2021 a similar one is expected to last year in terms of catches and revenue.
According to Minister of Agriculture Mae de la Concha, lamprey “is an example of fish that has been valued in recent years thanks to the joint work between the fishing sector itself and the institutions, and which is now much more profitable as well as sustainable.”
It should be noted that the fishing for lampreys is restricted and that the regulations provide for significant financial penalties for professional vessels of other types or for recreational vessels fishing less than 250 metres away from the brotherhoods’ vessels
Lampreys are an extremely primitive lineage of eel-like fish which at 360 million years old, pre-date the dinosaurs. Some species of lamprey are parasitic, feeding on other fish and were a popular delicacy among the nobility in medieval Britain.
The story goes that Henry I had such a hankering for this scary snack that his doctor deemed the cause of his untimely death “a surfeit of lampreys” – though this may be a fanciful embellishment on the part of Henry of Huntingdon, his chronicler.
Even recently, they have been popular with the British royals and a lamprey pie was made for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
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