Eels

"The Japanese eel makes a 3,000-kilometer annual migration from Japan and surrounding countries to the West Mariana Ridge in the western Pacific Ocean. With support from the Japanese government and other scientific institutions, researchers there have identified a spawning location, collected fertilized eggs, and tracked tagged eels swimming to their spawning area —all feats never attained in the Sargasso. They’ve found that Japanese eels spawn over a period of a few days before the new moon, at depths of 150 to 200 meters, and that spawning is triggered in part by temperature shifts that happen as eels move from deep to shallower water. Some eels, they learned, might spawn more than once during a spawning season."

“Scientists cannot say if 40 percent is sufficient to recover the stock. . .”

- Reinhold Hanel, head of the Thünen Institute of Fisheries Ecology in Germany

“Collectively, the projects aim to restore nearly 430 miles (700km) of rivers and revive 263 species including water vole, otter, pine marten, lapwing, great crested newt, European eel and marsh fritillary. . . . 'We’re excited, we’re ambitious and this could be the start of 30-year conservation covenants. This is a long-term commitment to biodiversity and all the public goods that are spelled out in the government’s 25-year environment plan.'”

“New specimens of Sri Lanka’s only endemic swamp eel, locally known as vel anda (Monopterus desilvai), from vegetable plots in the island’s west highlight the need for further study of the coastal floodplains. ‘It is not a sensitive or indicator species. The best conservation approach is to conserve their remaining habitats . . . Though this family of eels were known to science over two centuries, new species continue to be discovered, perhaps indicative of a globally understudied status.’”

- Hiranya Sudasinghe, molecular biologist at the University of Peradeniya’s Post-Graduate Institute of Science

"The illegal export of glass eels from Europe to Asia has now been recognized as one of the world's greatest wildlife crimes and Europol has estimated the scale of over 300 million eels (2018 data) annually. . . The numbers from Hong Kong are very alarming and reflect the huge amounts of European eels that are being farmed in Asia"

- Florian Stein, former Director of Scientific Operations at Sustainable Eel Group

"For every hundred eels that showed up on the coasts in the nineteen-seventies, it’s believed that now only five come to wriggle their way inland."

“Those of us who want to protect the eel in order to preserve something genuinely mysterious and enigmatic in a world of enlightenment will, in some ways, lose no matter how things turn out . . . Anyone who feels an eel should be allowed to remain an eel can no longer afford the luxury of also letting it remain a mystery.”

- Swedish journalist Patrik Svensson

"We hope the microchips will also shed light on the final stage of the eels’ lives. While young glass eels may have trouble climbing into Slimbridge, the silver adults should have no problem getting back out, driven by their urge to migrate and reproduce. We’ve installed a scanning device in a ditch that’s thought to be the main thoroughfare silver eels take to leave our wetlands. As each tagged eel wriggles past the scanner, a chip will record its details, before it embarks on an epic migration thousands of miles back to the Sargasso Sea where it will breed, then die . . . 'Why eels undertake these journeys, and how exactly they know where they’re going, are among the many puzzles that still surround these fish. But hopefully, as we learn more about them and take steps to make them more welcome, eels will keep coming back to our wetlands for many years to come.'"

- Emma Hutchins, Head of Reserves Management at Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust

“Despite alarming declines in numbers of adult eels, fishing continues; the eel trade remains dependent on the capture of wild fish.” “Late last year, the American eel management board for the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission announced that the “resource remains depleted,” but opted to maintain Maine's elver quota of around 4,400 kilograms for 2018.”

“Despite all the work in the U.S., Great Lakes-bound American eels ascending St. Lawrence River fishways have declined by 97 percent since the mid-1980s. As a result, there have been calls to list the “St. Lawrence eel stock” as federally “endangered,” but because eel migration from the sea is random there's no such thing as a river's “eel stock.” The St. Lawrence crash suggests major trouble for the entire, current-driven pulse of juvenile eels from the Sargasso Sea.”

"By undertaking a period of observation, eelers show respect for the eel as well as the oral tradition. Through this period of observation, the concept of M’sit No’kamaq is expressed and eelers learn patience, respect for the eel, proper eeling techniques, and how to identify and respect place. The proper eeling technique during summer helps ensure the survival of an escaped eel by targeting the tail, thereby avoiding critical internal organs and fatal injury . . . Aboriginal communities already have adapted [these] management practices in response to observed decline in the American eel and have indicated a willingness to limit its exploitation. These management adaptations could work to enhance sustainability of species and provide added opportunity for cross-cultural understanding between the government and aboriginal communities."

“The global European eel stock is critically endangered according to the IUCN, and the European Commission has urged the development of conservation plans aimed to ensure its viability. However, the complex life cycle of this panmictic species, which reproduces in the open ocean but spends most of its prereproductive life in continental waters (thus embracing a huge geographic range and a variety of habitat types), makes it difficult to assess the long-term effectiveness of conservation measures.”

"Our findings demonstrate that acute acoustic events, such as the noise of a passing ship, may have serious impacts on animals with direct consequences for life-or-death behavioral responses . . . If these impacts affect whole populations then the endangered eel—which has seen a 90 percent crash in abundance over the past 20 years due to climate change—may have one more problem to deal with as they cross busy coastal areas.”

“The eating of freshwater eel — or unagi — is a culinary romance that has lasted more than 5,000 years. Indeed, eel bones have been found in shell mounds dating back to the Jomon Period, which lasted from around 10,000 B.C. to 200 B.C.” but “. . . in 2013, Japan's government added Anguilla japonica to its official Red List of endangered fish...”