Andrew Kerr - Sustainable Eel Group (Eels in crisis)

As Gloucestrians either by birth or through adoption, we all know something, thanks to their presence in the River Severn, of the life cycle of the European eel even if it’s just the relatively early stage of the elver.  Andrew joined us, not only to give a comprehensive account of the eel’s life cycle, but also to talk about its demise, now critically endangered, alarmingly one step short of extinction.  Later he spoke about the efforts being taken to increase the levels to something which would ensure the future safety of the species.

The whole process starts in the Sargasso Sea, that exotically named part of the Caribbean, where the fertilised eggs become leaf shaped larvae and drift across the Atlantic for up to 2 years on the prevailing currents of the Gulf Stream and the North Atlantic Drift.  Approximately 1% survive.  The larvae are distributed across the seaboards of the whole of Europe and North Africa.  They become elvers once in the rivers and later transform into larger eels, spending up to 10 years maturing, choosing, surprisingly, their gender as they do so.  But the mating urge calls and they then make the return journey across the Atlantic against the prevailing current in search of romance in their home waters.  Their reward for this quest is unfortunately death.  Part of the mystery of the eel is that no one has ever witnessed them mating.

Andrew informed us that reasons for their decline are habitat loss, migration barriers such as hydropower and water pumps, climate change, over-fishing, disease and pollution among others.  He showed slides of  some migration barriers and it just emphasised how thoughtless schemes can impact so profoundly on nature.  Interestingly he didn’t feel that fishing was a major cause of decline.

Finally, Andrew dealt with the solutions to these problems although he emphasised it would take decades of work, the Sustainable Eel Group being at the vanguard.  Certainly the expensive redesign and removal of migration barriers is a formidable task often involving more than one country.  Climate change and pollution also require international co-operation.  Fishing still takes place in the Severn but for mainly translocation purposes, with up to 70% being used for this.  This was a more optimistic note on which to end a thought provoking talk.

Peter Harris