- Tough new powers to save the eel from a catastrophic
slump in numbers are to be introduced after experts warned that the European
eel is facing extinction. Biologists warned last month that European eel
populations could be as low as one per cent of the size they were 20 years
ago. It is one of the most severe and puzzling slumps in any fish species
seen by conservationists.
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- To halt that decline, ministers are planning to introduce
tough measures, which will include new powers to ban eel fishing, outlaw
unlicensed fishing and set tight rules stopping the use of unsuitable nets
on the country's rivers.
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- The initiative, which is expected to get official approval
within weeks, follows alarming evidence from marine conservationists that
native populations across Europe are in crisis.
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- Over the past 10 years, the number caught across Europe
has slumped by two-thirds - from about 30,000 tons to 10,000 tons. Around
the Severn Estuary - Britain's largest eel fishery - the rate of decline
is even steeper, falling from about 50 tons in the 1980s to just 10 tons
last year.
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- The International Convention on the Exploitation of the
Sea (Ices) repeated warnings that numbers have fallen so low that its population
is now "outside safe biological limits".
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- Experts are at a loss to explain what has gone wrong,
but they suspect the decline can be blamed on over-fishing, changes in
ocean circulation, water pollution, the construction of dams, power stations
and weirs on rivers, and even a vicious parasite carried by Asian eels,
which damages its buoyancy sacs.
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- The scale of the crisis has lead the European Commission
to call for an urgent programme of emergency action across the continent.
In its latest report, the commission warned that if the crisis worsens,
it could ask for an outright ban on all eel fishing to allow stocks to
recover.
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- The European eel has been caught in a dangerous paradox,
its report said. As their numbers have slumped, their sale price has leapt
upwards, making them even more valuable for commercial fishermen and poachers.
Young eel, known as glass eels or elvers, are caught by the ton for eel
farms, but they are also used to restock rivers and lakes such as Lough
Neagh in Northern Ireland, where populations have slumped.
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- But the price for elvers is now so high that experts
at the Environment Agency, respon- sible for protecting English rivers
and estuaries, fear they cannot afford to buy enough elvers to restock
depleted areas. In 1998, the price of elvers reached £250 per kilo.
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- "Due to the high price of eels, there are strong
economic incentives to continue fishing down to the last few recruits,"
the commission said.
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- The crisis is worsened because adult eels live for up
to 15 years before going back to sea to mate and spawn, so eel populations
can take several decades to rebuild. "This means that the eel stock
is in an extremely high-risk situation," it added.
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- Miran Aprahamiam, an eel expert with the Environment
Agency, said: "This is a long- term project. They've such a long life,
we aren't going to see the real benefits for 10, 15 or 20 years. This isn't
going to be short-term."
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- The commission is urging EU member states to introduce
even tougher proposals than those planned by the Department of the Environment,
Food and Rural Affairs. They include limits on catch sizes, bans on catching
elvers, seasonal or regional bans on fisheries and licensing of all eel
fishing.
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- But, in a measure that alarms anglers, it also wants
an emergency ban on fishing for silver eels - the adult eels that produce
new young at sea. "The present situation is sufficiently disquieting
that exploitation of eels should be reduced to the lowest possible level
while a recovery plan is being formulated," the report warned.
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- However, Clive Dennison, general secretary of the Eel
Study Group, said this was unfair. Large-scale illegal fisheries, using
so-called "fyke" nets, were a major factor in the decline, he
insisted. Mr Dennison welcomed the Government crackdown, but said ministers
also needed to make possessing unlicensed nets a criminal offence. "We
need to give the Environment Agency the power to restrict the pressure
on eel fisheries," he said.
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=468580
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