Fishes
In the history of the fishing in Venezuela can be
considered 3 aspects, those which, although
interrelated to each other, they conserve a certain
independence in their development and evolution.
These are: 1) the fishing in the time previous to
the discovery whose methods and characteristic they
are still continued among the current indigenous
ethnoses non aculturadas or in acculturation
process; 2) the fishing of the pearl starting from
the discovery, intimately bound activity with the
beginnings of the conquest and colonization of the
territory and that is prolonged up to 1969;
and, 3) the fisheries in general, starting from the
discovery in that the methods and brought techniques
of Europe incorporated gradually to the fishing
activities that are developed in the territories
that will form Venezuela and whose evolution and
expansion drive to the current situation of the
fishing in the country.
The indigenous fishing: The archaeological locations
indicate that more than 6.000 years ago, during the
time mesoindia, in Venezuela was already
practiced the fishing in marine and continental
waters. In those locations they have been fishhooks,
lances, associated with remains of fish and
mollusks. The fishhooks were manufactured with bone,
shell and possibly with tortoiseshell and coconut
shells. The most complete archaeological evidence in
the before Columbus fishing in Venezuela, is some
2.000 years of antiquity old and it comes from the
location of The Pitía (peninsula of the Peasant).
it has been supposed that the technique consisted on
catching the fish with traps or triangular fences,
to finish off them then to macana blows. The use of
nets in that time corresponds to the series
Manicuaroide and Manicuare whose antiquity
oscillates between 700 and 3.000 years before the
present. They have met lithic pieces in an oval way
with a central groove, which were probably used as
pesos placed in the inferior border of the nets.
Among the columnists that give us news of the
general characteristics and indigenous fishing
methods, they deserve to make an appointment:
Antonio of Herrera, Gonzalo Fernández of Oviedo and
Valdés, Francisco López of Gómara, brother
Bartolomé of The Houses and the father José
Gumilla. For them we know that the fishing
activities before the arrival of the Spaniards
already had a certain importance among some
indigenous groups and they had reached an
appreciable development. They used numerous types of
devices like the lights, nets, fishhooks, harpoons
and arrows. Among the methods, they practiced the
fence and the perusal. They also used sticks and
corrals made with wooden stakes, mainly in those
coastal areas affected by the flow and reflux of the
tides; in the mouths that communicated the coast
lagoons with the sea or in the outlet of lateral
pipes in communication with the main channel of a
river. It is interesting to make notice that many of
these procedures like the perusal, the use of lights
and the beach fences persist until today, modified
and improved with technical and more modern methods,
taking place a true technological miscegenation. The
lights that used to attract the fish were afire
smuts or firebrands. The perusal or beating of the
water accompanied by screams to scare and to
concentrate to the fish toward a point and this way
to drive them toward the nets is nowadays common
procedure in the fence and capture of the flat one.
The use of the barbasco, poisonous extract coming
from diverse vegetables, to kill the fish, era also
very common practice among the natives in the
interior waters. The used crafts were curiaras,
sometimes of great behavior whose use continues
being common in all the fluvial fisheries of the
country. They knew the form also of conserving the
fish using the salt and other methods like the
simple drying, the roasted one, the one cooked and
others whose explanation in the chronicles is not
clear. The methods of fishing of the current
yanomamis, seem to repeat and to confirm the
informations of the columnists. These natives fish
mainly with arch and it darts; this last, with
wooden tip of atari, has harpoon form whose
hook is of a monkey bone. They also use other arrows
more small, denominated ruhumasi. In the time of low
waters (summer) they fish with kind of a nets
barrederas formed with palm leaves and lianas, with
those that concentrate to the fish that later take
out with the hands or with kind of a sieves, made of
mamure, of about 80 diameter cm. They also make use
of the barbasco that extract of diverse undergrowths
as the ayaritoto that is a liana and the yarakahena
that it is a bush. The liana uses it cutting it in
pieces of about 20 cm that later they crush and they
throw to the water. The procedures of the waraos are
similar to those of the yanomamis, but they don't
use the barbasco, but mainly the arrows, the
harpoons, kind of a stick floats with a fishhook and
those staked or hurdles to catch the fish in the
crossings of the pipes. At the present time almost
all the waraos uses devices and modern methods:
nailon nets, fishhooks, etc.
The fishery of pearls: The fishery of pearls in
diverse places of the oriental costs, it was already
practiced by the natives before the arrival of the
Spaniards, extracting them for diving to free lung.
The importance of the pearls and their intensive
exploitation begins almost from the first moment in
that one has news of the pleasures of Cubagua during
Columbus's third trip in 1498 and with Pedro Alonso
Niño exploration and Cristóbal Guerra the
following year. Apparently, in 1512 some type of
homestead of pearls of Spaniards settled down in the
small island already existed. In certain form, the
history of the exploitation of the pearl made a
mistakes with the origins of the history of
Venezuela. The depth to that you dove is not known
with certainty, but it probably oscillated between 4
and 9 fathoms. The diving carried out it indigenous
of the island and firm coast, but they were also
brought of other Antillean islands, among them
lucayos of the Bahamas. Starting from 1527, the
Crown authorized the introduction of black slaves,
but they were not used in a general way until the
second half of the XVI century. In their beginnings,
the normal unit of fishing was a small canoe with a
company from 6 to 8 people. Starting from 1524
bigger canoes were introduced, "of
charts", with a normal capacity of some 15
people. The trail for the extraction of pearls began
to be used in 1529 by Luis of Lampiñán, to who the
Crown granted him a permission to fish for the
haulage system, but had to give up him for the
resistance that you/they made the cubagüenses to
the same one. The first description of a trail dates
of 1568. The fishing tasks began when leaving the
sun and they finished at dusk. The production
reached a maximum around 1527, when the real recruit
had a value of about 1.300 marks. Starting from that
date the production acusadamente descends, so that
already in 1542, the pleasures of Cubagua are
practically abandoned, the same as the city of New Cádiz.
In 1545, they are only in Margarita 2 or 3 canoes
and many canoes. However, in 1559 the exploitation
continues and it resurges with force in 1574 again
when they are discovered the pleasures of the island
of Car. Toward final of the century another crisis
takes place; a dispute arises between Margarita
governments and Cumaná for the exploitation of the
fishery of Cubagua that is solved by the
intervention of the Crown, the one which, for the
same dates, it dictates some general ordinances on
the fisheries among those that the concession of
recompenses is included those that discover new
pleasures. At the beginning of the XVII century the
fishing organization of extraction was already more
complex and it is mentioned that the canoes had a
"captain" that was a black one skillful in
the occupation and a "I steer" that was
Spanish. In the XVIII century, the boats were
governed by black mayorales. Besides the pleasures
of Cubagua and Car they were also exploited those of
Margarita and some located in Araya, the gulf of
Cariaco and Cumaná. A relationship exists of final
of the XVI century that enumerates all the banks
that were exploited in that time. Accomplished the
independence, the Government granted in August from
1823 to the British company Rundell, Bridge &
Rundell the exclusive right, for 10 years, of the
fishing of pearls by means of machines in the
territorial seas and costs of the Great Colombia. In
September of 1828 the brig Wolf arrived to Margarita
to begin such activities, for bill of the company,
in waters of Cubagua; but apparently it desisted at
the little time. The use of the trail didn't
probably take in being imposed as the most
appropriate method in extraction, being used
practically without modifications until our days.
During Cipriano Castro's government, in 1902,
also begins the exploitation with diving suit
plungers for concession to a English company, which
almost operated time, passing the exploitation at
the hands of small managers, some of which ended up
possessing until 18 teams that were operated by
small fishing units, each one of which had a
plunger. One worked until a depth of 9 fathoms
(about 16 meters). Intents of working to more
depths, of 14 fathoms, had to be abandoned because
the plungers suffered of cramps and hemorrhages. The
diving with diving suit was used by last time in
1961. The biggest production perlera in the modern
times took place in 1943, with a volume of about
1.300 kg of pearls. Starting from this year, and
especially of 1946, the low production considerably,
as well as the number of requested permits. In 1957
524 permits were sent for trail and 11 for diving
suit; in 1961, 343 and 4 respectively, and in 1966
only 105 for trail. To the production shortage, the
fall of the prices was added. Starting from 1950 the
price of the karat of pearl didn't pass of Bs. 4
while enters 1918 and 1924 it oscillated among
Bs. 20 and 30. In 1961 they no longer arrived to
Margarita foreign buyers and the whole production
was acquired by local merchants to reason of Bs.
1,75 the karat of the pearls of better quality and
of Bs. 1,10 for those of inferior quality. The last
exploration-exploitation was carried out in 1969,
when the exhaustion was verified of most of the
banks. Later on the shell pearl (tripa`e pearl) it
has been exploited sporadically for the use of the
meat. Although starting from 1940 they began to
exist motorized crafts, great part of the fishing
fleet, up to 1961, carried out the haulage
operations with candle and until the last times, the
trails were hoisted by hand. The fishing season
opened up in January and closed April 30.
The fisheries in general: From the beginnings of the
discovery, you began to bring America the methods
and European fishing arts and this way, in a
relationship of 1495 the shipment of 2 nets, type
chinchorro is already mentioned and of crafts to
fish. The commander's expedition Diego of Ordaz to
the Orinoco also took chinchorros for the fishing as
it consisted in a document of 1532. This type of net
barredera is the one that more you generalized in
Venezuela and it has been conserved until the
present with very few modifications in the general
structure, although it has been diversified for its
use in specific fisheries and this way, the mandinga
has arisen that is a chinchorro of smaller size; the
picuero, adapted for the picúas capture or
barracudas; the caritero, etc. If in the structure
it has hardly suffered modifications, in the
materials used for their construction the
transformation it has been complete. Now the net
cloths already come made and they are of nailon, the
same as the cabuyas; and the floats that were made
with tacarigua wood, have been substituted by those
of plastic. The haulage of the net was always made
by hand until very recent time in that for the
manpower shortage and the motorization of the
crafts, spent to use these last ones for the
traction of the net until very near the beach, where
the one is finished off it throws halando by hand
the net. Precise information doesn't exist on the
time in that the other arts were introduced today in
use, but for its wide diffusion in many of the
former Spanish colonies should be also in early
time. Of European and brought origin of Spain they
are the tarraya, the palangre or espinel,
trasmallos, harpoons, ballestinas, etc.; however,
the nasa that is used in Venezuela, proceeds,
apparently, of the India and taken by the Portuguese
to África, it passed to the sea Caribbean to
inclination probably the island of Madeira. The
construction of crafts for fishing also began very
soon and it exists information that toward 1532 they
were already manufactured in New Cádiz of Cubagua.
Another information sent in 1565 to Sacred Domingo's
Audience indicates that Diego Fernández of Serpa
was in charge of in manufacturing cuadernas for
fishing crafts in the island of Cubagua and in 1586,
a real identification ordered the governors from the
New Andalusia and Venezuela that didn't put
obstacles to the margariteños that will look for
wood to its costs to build the canoes and ships. The
excellent tradition and quality of the carpentry of
existent riverside still in the oriental costs, it
is a clear indication of the antiquity and
importance of this industry. The first ordinances on
fishes they also come from Cubagua and they are
included in the general of the city of New Cádiz,
edited in 1537. They make reference to the
dispositions that should be continued for the heavy
of the fish. As for internal and external trade one
has knowledge that already in the XVI century salted
fish was exported from Margarita to The Spaniard
(Sacred Domingo) and to other Antillean islands and
that the lebranches that captured the Indians of
Uchire and Fences in the lagoons of Unare and Píritu
by means of corrals and barbecues, supplied all
those districts, to Caracas, mainly during the Lent.
The natives, mainly the guaiqueríes, incorporated
very soon to the organizations of fishing
exploitation of the Spaniards, constituting most of
the manpower. During the Colony, the capture
methods, conservation of the fish and marketing stay
practically unalterable and they are prolonged until
well entered the XX century. The structure of the
organizations of exploitation, or fishing trains, it
is known well by Andrés Aurelio Level description
in the statistical Memory of 1873. For her we know
that in Margarita they existed in that time 42
fishing trains, of which 29 resided in the island of
Car. Of them, 12 were of chinchorro and 30 of
fillets. The trains settled down in certain places,
receiving the name of homesteads, those which, in
many cases, they were the origin of numerous towns
of Margarita island and of the state Sucre. In a
train they could work until 200 people distributed
in the following form: of 120 to 140 men, of 15 to
20 women and of 30 to 40 children. Also, there were
from 10 to 12 officials or manipulators, 1 leader, 1
rancher, 1 steward and the owner; all the workers
were guaiqueríes. This structure and their system
of distribution of benefits, they stay basically
until the present, coexisting with other types of
companies and fishing methods that they begin to be
introduced by the middle of the XX century. The only
substantial evolution of the fishing train and the
homestead is the decrease of its size and
correlatively, the increase of the number of these
units of fishing exploitation, and this way, the 12
chinchorro trains that there were in 1873 in
Margarita, with more than 200 employees each one,
they give place to more than 170 in 1956, with an
average of about 10 employees for train. For the
same dates of final of the XIX century, Margarita
fishermen already exercised their activity in the
islands The Turtle and The Blanquilla, in those
which you arranchaban per periods of 4 to 6 followed
months to exercise the fishing. However, in other
nearer islands or in Macanao (it leaves western of
Margarita) it has been and it is still traditional,
to divide the year in 4 coincident fishing seasons
with the main religious parties: of Easter to Week
Santa; of Week Santa until San Juan (24 June); of
San Juan until the Virgin of the Valley (8
September) and from this festivity until Easter. It
was also frequent to return to Margarita for the
party of the Cruz of May. During these periods of
rest they were beached, they painted and they
repaired the crafts and the liquidation was made to
the workers. The mobility that has allowed the
motorization of the fleet has gone modifying the
rigidity of the seasons of absence gradually.
The colonization of the archipelago of The Asleep
ones for the fishermen margariteños is more recent.
The first establishments are located toward 1923,
when Felipe Marcano, of Mouth of Well, establishes
their homesteads in several keys of The Asleep ones;
for those dates a family of Choir also lived in
those islands and they were still some Dutchmen,
which had been exploiting the salt and the mangrove
to obtain coal approximately up to 1910. The same as
in The Turtle and The Blanquilla, the fishing in The
Asleep ones was made mainly with line and nasas and
the whole captured fish was salted. In 1948 there
were in The Asleep 13 seated families, almost all of
fishermen margariteños. Similar colonization
carried out in the delta of the Orinoco the
fishermen margariteños that led to the foundation
of Tucupita for the navigator margariteño Juan Millán
and other, in 1848. The fishing of the lobster with
nasas in The Asleep ones doesn't begin properly up
to 1950, becoming the main objective of the fishery
of the archipelago gradually. Up to 1940, almost the
whole fishing fleet was of oar and it veils, since
the general Juan Vicente Gómez had forbidden the
installation of motors. Starting from this year, the
true transformation of the fishing fleet begins and
with her the expansion of the properly Venezuelan
fisheries of height begins, mainly that of line and
palangre in the costs of Guayana, the one which
gradually extends until Surinam and Cayena and even
to the Brazil in campaigns that oscillate among 15
days and more than a month of duration. With the
introduction of the motor it doesn't vary the basic
type of the crafts, they simply adapt for the
appropriate installation of the same ones. The
trespuños that was the most characteristic craft,
modifies mainly for the reduction of the canvas and
it is generally equipped with central motor. Other
smaller crafts are equipped with motors outside of
overboard that they settled in a structure that was
added to the stern, denominated grill. The trespuños
has always been used mainly for the fish transport,
dry or enhielado, to the ports of the national coast
and the Antillean islands: Curazao, San Vicente,
Granada, Martinique, etc. The first central motors
that used, were to gasoline of the mark Gray Marin,
substituted quickly by the classic of gasoil of the
marks Lister, Bolinders and Pentax. The first marks
of motors outside of overboard that they began to
arrive to the country they were Archimedes, Johnson
and Peters. In 1947 the government makes the first
effort to motorize the fishing fleet acquiring,
through the Venezuelan Corporation of Development,
225 central motors and 258 outside of overboard to
sell them to credit to the fishermen.
Coincident with the motorization of the fleet the
introduction takes place in the country of new arts
and fishing methods. In 1940, the company Basque
Fisheries of the Caribbean, introduces the ring net
for the capture of fish pelágicos whose use you
generalizes very soon as an element more than the
fishing trains and in 1947 they arrive the first
haulage nets brought by Italian fishermen. The first
haulage ship, the San Giorgio I, began to operate in
1948 in the gulf of Venezuela in order to exploiting
the shrimps. In 1955 there were already 8 ships
operating in this area, and in 1968 the arrastreros
fleet in the whole country was of 122 ships, most of
them with base on the dot Fixed (Edo. Falcon), but
already some had settled down in the oriental region
(Port The Cruz and Cumaná). In the same year, 8
arrastreros began to operate in the gulf of it Gave
birth to. In 1971, the total number of haulage
crafts was of 181, of which 117 belonged at the
fleet of Fixed Point and 17 to that of Maracaibo,
the rest to the oriental region. Starting from this
year a gradual displacement takes place toward the
oriental region, due to the scarce yield of the
banks western camaroneros. In 1977 there was near
100 arrastreros in this region. Up to 1963, the
arrastreros was of the type Mediterranean that
you/they operated with a single net, but starting
from this year the fleet modified and
transformed to the denominated pattern Florida that
operates simultaneously with 2 nets. The fleet
arrastrera reached its maximum dimension in 1989
with 439 crafts, diminishing at 415 in 1992. The
haulage fishing in Venezuela was guided from its
beginnings to the capture of the shrimp of shallow
waters of the continental platform. Their
performance has been extremely controversial and the
source of a constant conflict with the handmade
fishermen of traditional type that have been
displaced and directly harmed by the activity of the
arrastreros, which have also been questioned in
connection with the possible negative effect that
the haulage can have on the populations of fish
demersales. Another recent innovation in the
fisheries of Venezuela, it has been the tuna fishing
with palangre. This modality began in 1954, but
takes impulse starting from 1959 when starts a
project of exploitation with Venezuelan-Japanese
interests to operate 3 ships tunny boats. Many
Venezuelan crafts incorporated to this fishing type
modifying their structure, sometimes not very
wisely, for the demands of a fishing of height. In
1971 about 60 ships tunny boats that had base mainly
in ports of the northeastern region existed (Cumaná,
Porlamar, Marigüitar) and in The Guaira. Recently,
low Venezuelan flag operates ships tunny boats of
the most modern structure and design and of great
tonnage that you/they use the method of gigantic
fence nets and they carry out its captures so much
in national waters as international of the Caribbean
and the Atlantic and in the Pacific. The
delimitation of the marine areas and the creation of
the denominated exclusive economic areas, believe
Venezuela the necessity to negotiate bilateral
treaties with the bordering nations to defend their
fishing interests. In 1992 there was in the country
88 crafts atuneras, of which 35 use fence arts, 18
cane and fishhook, and 35 palangres.
Legislation and fishing control: The fishing in
Venezuela has always been an excluded activity that
has received very little attention of government's
organs. For this reason, the production data, used
manpower, number of crafts and arts of fishing etc.,
they are very scarce and fragmentary and in general,
not very reliable. Up to 1936 in that the Ministry
of Agriculture is believed and it Raises, it didn't
exist in Venezuela any organism central regulator or
controller of the fishing activity. Starting from
the existence of this ministry, the sector fishes it
occupies a very secondary position in the structure
of the same one. In their beginnings, it depended on
the Address of Cattle raising, after the Address of
Agricultural Economy, passing in 1959 to the
department of Hunt and Fishes of the Address
of Renewable Resources. In 1963 the National Office
of Fishing is believed that it reaches a certain
development and diversification of functions when
starts the agreement investigation MAC-FAO-PNUD and
development that it lasted until the year 1972. In
1976, the National Office of Fishing disappears and
the Sectoral General Address of Fishing Development
is believed attributed to the Ministry of
Agriculture that lasted until September of 1993. The
intents to create a National Institute of the
Fishing never passed of the project level. The first
law of official fishing was promulgated in 1935 and
it was repealed by that of 1944 that is at the
present time the effective one; it lacks own
regulation and a limited number of special
dispositions only exists on the fishing activity, in
general of casuistical and lacking type of
organicidad. In 1960 and 1968 sendos bills of
Fishing was elaborated that they never passed of
being such. Also in 1944 the Law of Fishing of
Pearls was promulgated. For ordinance núm. 3.166
spirit in gazette of date 8 of September of 1993,
you creó the Autonomous Service of the Fishing
Resources and Acuícolas (SARPA), like an
organizational structure of transition, clerk of the
Ministry of Agriculture and it Raises that
substitutes to the Sectoral General Address of
Fishing and Agriculture, as long as the Organic Law
of Fishing and Acuicultura introduced for their
discussion in the Congress in 1992 is approved
definitively and that among other dispositions it
contemplates the creation of the Venezuelan
Institute of the Fishing and Agriculture. A novelty
that is introduced with the creation of the SARPA is
the collection for the grant of the fishing permits
in all its modalities.
Production: In 1873 was considered a fishing
production of some 8.000 tm. The summary of
statistical of production on the part of the State
began in 1940. The dear figures for that year throw
a production of 32.500 tm; however, this figure
probably only represents around the 60 to 70% of the
production real because many small towns they were
not covered for the officials to that doesn't
take into account the self-consumption of the
fishermen and to that neither the fish was computed
transported in trucks from landing points isolated
to cities of the interior. In 1945 the production
figures were of 15.353 tm of fresh fish, 13.089 of
salted fish and 6.023 of preserve. The first canning
industry settled in Cumaná in 1938. In 1951
was carried out the first national fishing census,
which gave a figure of 5.814 crafts with a total
tonnage of 7.729,720 tm and 22.274 workers directly
involved in the extraction tasks. The biggest
tonnage corresponded to the states of New Esparta
(2.311,848 tm) and Sucre (1.525,425 tm), that is to
say the traditional areas of fishing. To the group
of these 2 states it corresponded almost half of all
the fishing labor force. The fishing production,
except for some isolated year has stayed in constant
increase. The production data from 1979 you
sumarizan in the following square in metric tons.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Year Fishes marít. fishes fluv. Total
------------------------------------------------------------------
1979 164.420 6.934 171.354
1980 170.640 15.933 186.573
1981 178.591 13.346 191.937
1982 198.683 15.010 213.693
1983 206.860 20.009 226.869
1984 243.940 21.073 265.013
1985 263.900 16.169 280.069
1986 284.197 19.886 304.083
1987 263.122 27.441 240.563
1988 256.826 30.634 287.460
1989 318.907 23.015 341.922
1990 319.400 18.900 338.300
1991 328.707 21.293 350.000
1992 305.380 20.574 325.954
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The increases registered starting from 1979 are owed
mainly to the tuna captures that spent of 5.500 tm
in this year at 22.000 in 1982 and at 70.000 in
1984, that which represented an entrance of Bs.
942.000.000, becoming Venezuela the fourth country
producing of tuna in the Atlantic. Of the total of
the national fishing production, the biggest volume
corresponds to the handmade fishing, including the
sardine, continued by the fishing of the tuna.
Starting from the devaluation of the bolivar in
1983, Venezuela became an exporter of fishing
products; the prices increased considerably, growing
the interest for the fishing activities which
experienced a considerable growth with the rising
impulse of the construction of ships, so much of
riverside carpentry as industrial. Special attention
has wakened up for the fisheries of products of high
quality like the grouper and the pargo that are
largely marketed in the exterior. In 1985, the value
of the fishing production was considered in
something more than Bs. 1.000.000.000 and in 1991,
went lightly inferior to the Bs. 18.000.000.000. in
1992 the number of crafts smaller permisadas was of
almost 17.000. The number of crafts passed of 7.110
in 1977 at 12.121 in 1981, of which 3.837 correspond
at the continental waters and 8.284 to the marine
fisheries. The total number of fishermen has been
located in the last years around the 4.000. F.C.