A few hours after dawn one late July morning, the sound of Gregory Debruyne’s horse Kelly trotting through the verdant lanes of Oostduinkerke echoes through the quaint coastal village in west Belgium.
Pulling a cart filled with fishing gear and equipment to sift shrimps, Kelly – a brown Belgian draught horse – and Debruyne are heading towards the sandy shores of the North Sea to go shrimp fishing.
Debruyne is a Belgian horseback shrimp fisherman in Oostduinkerke – the last place in the world where this centuries-old practice of catching shrimp using horses rather than boats continues.
“I learned horseback shrimp fishing from my father when I was 11 years old,” Debruyne, now 27, tells Al Jazeera, as he gets Kelly ready to fish for the day in the village centre, close to the sea.
Dozens of tourists are crowding around them and eagerly watching as Debruyne covers Kelly with a warm blanket and mounts two brown baskets on either side of her back. He also attaches a chained net to her tail.
“Using her hindquarters, Kelly will wade through the shallow waves of the North Sea, until the seawater reaches her chest, pulling the net, which has a chain at the bottom. This pull generates a vibration that disturbs the shrimp in the shallow waters, instigating them to jump into the expanded net,” Debryune explains.
Four other fishermen and their horses have joined Kelly and Debruyne in the village. All the horseback shrimp fishermen don bright yellow anoraks – thick waterproof jackets – and black gum boots and head off towards the North Sea on their horses.
“I hope to return after about an hour, with a worthy catch,” Debruyne shouts back as the spectators watch him and Kelly heading into the sea.
Horseback shrimp fishing – which is on the “Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity” list maintained by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) – began in northern Belgium at the turn of the 15th and 16th centuries, when the region was under the control of Christian monks.
While it was also practised in the Netherlands, France and parts of southern England, just 12 families in Belgium still pursue the tradition.
In 1502, there was an abbey at Koksijde (in present-day Belgium) and the monks wanted shrimps and fish to eat, something the local religious community was only too happy to oblige. “The local farmers, who owned horses, decided to go to the sea and catch shrimp and fish and give it to the monks of the abbey. This kicked off the practice of horseback shrimp fishing,” Eddy D’Hulster, who worked as a horseback shrimp fisherman for 56 years, tells Al Jazeera.
These days, horseback fishermen like Debruyne also work on commercial vessels to earn more money. On vessels, the horseback shrimp fishers also catch other fish and not just shrimp.
Those who pursue the tradition do it because they love horses and they love fishing, says D’Hulster. “It’s not all about money. For many, it is also the important method of carrying forward a family tradition. So even women and children in the family pursue the tradition.”