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Alpes-Maritimes: the sea urchin fishing season is open
Alpes-Maritimes: the sea urchin fishing season is open – (France 2)
Kick-off of the sea urchin fishing season, near Nice. Its particular fishing is done the old-fashioned way, with apnea.
It’s a little star with orange hues, which lights up the winter of seafood lovers. The sea urchin makes its big return to the port of Nice (Alpes-Maritimes), Friday December 15. “It’s the caviar of the Mediterranean”, assures an amateur. Franck Bottero is one of the last two sea urchin fishermen in Nice. When the sun rose, he went into the water, looking for rocks in which sea urchins could hide.
The resource is becoming scarce in the Mediterranean
“At the start of the season, when the water is still warm, 17°C, you have to fish as shallow as possible. (…) They are stuck to the rock, they eat the algae on the rocks, it’s gathering”, he said. In the Mediterranean, sea urchins are increasingly rare. For the first time this year, the opening of fishing has been postponed by two weeks. Back at the port, his father helps him unload the 350 sea urchins caught in just three hours. They are sold for 14 euros per dozen closed, 20 euros for open sea urchins.
