oa Van vischduivel tot beschermde vissoort

From “vischduivel” to protected fish species. Changing perceptions of the European catfish in the long nineteenth century

After the draining of the Haarlemmermeer in 1852 the last body of water in Western Europe that held European catfish disappears. Dutch newspapers in the long nineteenth century report on the captures of fish that somehow escaped. Until the 1880s catfish were described as monsters that belonged to the wasteland that humans were destined to cultivate. In the last two decades of the nineteenth century the discourse changed: the fish were put on display in aquariums and in doing so the monstruous was tamed. The twentieth century brought yet another shift in the representation of catfish: they became less threatening and even friendly, and were depicted as in need of protection.