In a bid to boost ailing eel stocks, some 153,000 baby eels have winged their way to Finland from France.
Faced with severely diminished numbers of Anguilla anguilla, Finland’s Fisheries Association said in a statement the imported eels were released to support the Finnish and Baltic Sea eel stock.
“The aim is for 40 percent of the imported eels to be able to return to reproduce,” said Fisheries Association spokesman Tapio Gustafsson.
The European eel population has crashed in recent decades due to a cluster of factors, including overfishing and changes to the habitats adult eels depend on to migrate to and from the sea. The species was listed as endangered in 2007 by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and is now subject to a strict international trade quota.
Finland’s Fisheries Association said that since the collapse in stocks, the eels no longer arrive on Finnish shores as they once did.
“The eels are also unable to rise to their feeding areas in lakes due to river dams,” said the association.
Eels begin life as larvae at sea, drifting for up to 300 days on the mid-Atlantic ocean currents until they reach the coast. The larvae then metamorphose into transparent eels (glass eels). The juvenile eels then enter estuaries and migrate upstream to grow and mature in rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands for between five and 50 years.
As the eels become sexually mature they migrate out to sea, where they move to the spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea off the U.S. coast.
In addition, the United Kingdom’s Environment Agency announced that it has imposed a ban on juvenile eel fishing until February 2011 in an effort “to stop their complete disappearance in English waters.” There is a maximum fine of GBP 50,000 for those who break the rules.
The agency added that efforts to boost eel populations include making migration through rivers and wetlands easier through the installation of 45 fish passes designed to allow eels to navigate past man-made structures such as weirs and locks.
“Given the critical state of our eel stocks we have had no choice but to introduce a close season on fishing for elvers from now until 14 February next year,” said Sally Chadwick, fisheries technical specialist for the Environment Agency.
All Supply & Trade stories >