We are in danger of losing our eels. To many people this may be of little interest, but it is a serious matter. The vast numbers of baby eels (elvers) which cross the Atlantic from the Sargasso Sea, somewhere near Bermuda, and end up in European rivers two or three years later have been falling dramatically. Many are being netted offshore, but the principal explanation blames the warming of the Arctic Ocean, resulting in weaker currents to carry the elvers to their destination. When they struggle into the river estuaries and begin the last stage of their journey upstream, they may meet modern sluices without eel passes, or they may meet polluted water and die of disease. The eel catchers of the East Anglian fens (eels from Ely, geddit?) have been banned by the Environment Agency and an ancient way of life is coming to an end.
None of this makes any difference to the British market for eels, which today scarcely exists. Jellied eels we all know about, and they can still be bought; but where are the eel pies, the eel puddings, the eel soups of yesteryear? (Apart from Eel Pie Island at Twickenham, there is an intriguingly named pub, The Eel’s Foot, out in the marshes of east Suffolk; its sign shows an eel peering from an old boot.)
Time was, in the 19th century, when cargoes of eels were sent from Holland to London, but now the trade is all the other way. Three quarters of the eel catch in Lough Neagh, the largest eel fishery in the United Kingdom, now goes to Amsterdam, but numbers are severely reduced: elvers are being caught for European eel farms and, for whatever reason, too few are coming up the River Bann and into the lough.
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