Global Fish Movement: Fish farming at the Barcelona Zoo in the early twentieth century

Abstract

In 1909, the Laboratori ictiogènic was inaugurated at the Barcelona Zoo with the aim of promoting fish farming and repopulating the rivers and lakes in Catalonia. The program was deployed throughout the territory through the «fish fests» and a Fish Farming and Fishing Exhibition in Barcelona. It must be understood within the framework of a transnational project which, since the mid-nineteenth century, sought to improve the productivity of rivers and seas. State fish farming institutions had been created everywhere, a global trade in species established and a fish fascination nurtured. The uniqueness of the Barcelona case lies in the fact that it emerged from a municipal zoo. The article attempts to show that the Catalan programme materialised thanks to the existence of a fish-farming framework on the international scene; while at the same time the political and social context modulated the way in which was put into practice.