Earth Equity News

A Steady, Steep Decline for Eels. By James Prosek, YaleEnviro360, September 2, 2010. "The range of American and European eels is shrinking dramatically and their total populations have fallen sharply. Populations of freshwater eels the world over -- from South Africa, to Indonesia, to Australia -- are in decline as the mysterious creatures have fallen victim to hydropower dams that macerate them on their downstream migrations, to coastal and river development that destroys or degrades their habitat, and to fisheries working to satisfy a robust demand for eels in Asia, especially in Japan... The decline of the world's eels mirrors crashing populations of many other magnificent marine creatures. But unlike the salmon, swordfish, or giant bluefin tuna… the world's eels have few defenders and are quietly slipping away…

"In its own way, the freshwater eel is as remarkable as other great migratory fish. Unlike anadromous fish, such as salmon and shad, that spawn in freshwater and live their adult lives in saltwater, freshwater eels are catadromous, meaning they spend their adult lives in freshwater (on average 10 to 30 years) and spawn in the middle of an ocean. The American and European eels spawn in the same general area -- the western part of the subtropical gyre of the North Atlantic Ocean between Bermuda and the Azores, a region of the Bermuda Triangle known as the Sargasso Sea. No one has witnessed an adult eel spawning in the ocean. The only reason we know they do is because eel larvae, days after hatching, have been caught in fine mesh nets drifting near the surface. A single female can carry thirty million eggs. To our knowledge, an eel spawns only once and dies, as adults have never been seen returning up rivers."