European Eel Populations Collapsing - Reuters

[hatrack]

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — "When a poacher with a baseball bat mugged Dutch biologist Willem Dekker to steal a batch of baby eels he caught for research, Dekker knew the European eel was a species in trouble.

The strange, snakelike fish with its mysterious life cycle has managed to survive in rivers and on farms despite overfishing and a loss of natural habitat, thanks to artificial restocking with tiny eel fry, known as "glass eel." Because eel do not breed in captivity, collecting the glass eel from shorelines and rearing them is the only way to restock.

But for reasons that are not entirely clear, that system appears to be falling apart and the eel population is collapsing. For the 25,000 eel fishers and countless animals who live off them, the future is uncertain. "The eel population fell to 10 percent of its former levels in the last half century," Dekker said. "Now it's going from 10 percent to 1 percent."

EDIT

Dekker predicts the species will survive but that commercial fishing soon will be impossible. "On the basis of the silver eels that we've seen, there's one, two, maybe three years' time. Then it's over," Dekker said. The European Union plans to decide on emergency steps to protect the eel this autumn, after years of debate, said Ernesto Penas, head of fisheries conservation and stocks at the E.U.'s Agriculture Department. Despite flaws in the data available, Penas said, the trend is "extremely clear ... The trend is toward collapse in the eel population, and no one is calling that into question." But deciding what should be done has been very difficult, he said."

EDIT

http://www.enn.com/news/2004-08-17/s_26570.asp

[blindpig]

1. same here

When I was a kid one could go any waterside bar and buy a smoked eel 2-3ft long cheaply. Nowadays a friend who lives on the water and keeps an eel pot hasn't caught a keeper in a year. It's my understanding that most all commercially taken eels go to Japan, though I wouldn't be surprised if US sushi restaurants take their toll. Too much greed, too many people.