Paper short abstract:

Paper discuss images of four N Adriatic fish that have important role in heritage-making processes: Piranꞌs mullet, a migratory fish linked with local tradition; "sedentarized" seabass from fish ponds, the sardines, important for fishing industry and tuna linked with the "lost" Slovene territory.

Paper long abstract:

Paper discuss stories and images of four N Adriatic fish that have important role in heritage-making processes. They appear in museums, on postage stamps, within tourist brochures, movies and other promotional material. The first one is a Piranꞌs mullet, a migratory fish that is strongly linked with local fishing tradition. The second one is its rival, a "sedentarized" pray fish, Piranꞌs seabass, living in fish farms. Mullet's image was selected for the Slovene animal postage stamp in 2013, and the fish often finds its way also into Slovene newspapers and TV, most frequently in connection with the disputed maritime border which they obliviously cross. Piranꞌs seabass swimming in fish farms in the Bay of Piran is a novelty. It is a fish "without heritage", a fish for which the doors of Piranꞌs municipality and museum are closed, a fish that doesn't cross the contested border and sit comfortably within sustainable development discourse. There are two other fish, important for this region and linked with other specific heritage discourses, historical periods or fishing technologies - the sardines and tunas. The sardines are small pelagic fish important for ex-Yugoslav fishing industry but also a common meal served at fish picnic taking place on Slovene fishing boats. The fourth fish is tuna - it is contextualised with the narration on the traditional Slovene tuna fishing along the coast between the Trieste and Sistiana (on the nowadays Italian coast), with the "lost" Slovenian territory and it lives in museum and past stories linked to the "real Slovene fishing".