The Salt Pans of Marzamemi

Salt extraction from the Marzamemi salt pans was functional for the preservation of bluefin tuna caught in the local tuna fishery. The salt pans remained in operation until the early 1960s. During the period of their activity, in the feeding channels connected with the sea, some rare fish species found their natural habitat, such as the marzamarieddu, a small fish that later, as a result of the intense anthropization of the place and the decommissioning of the salt pans, disappeared altogether. Beginning in the 1970s, the salt pans, in the summertime, when the bodies of water dried up, were used by young people in the village as soccer fields. All that remains of these now disused salt pans is the large pond, which in the winter season becomes a passage point for various migratory bird species, including pink flamingos.