The eel is the breeding of the eel, and both are caught and consumed, despite the fact that the species (Anguilla anguilla) is in critical condition. Two weeks ago, the European Union approved fishing quotas for 2024 and the European eel continues to appear there, including horse mackerel, roosters, anglerfish... The recommendation to stop catches by the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES), the body that assesses the state of stocks and sends its proposals to the European Commission, has been ignored. While the ministers were deciding how much to catch, renowned chefs from the international hotel and restaurant association Relais & Chateau, including Pedro Subijana, and the international organization of chefs Euro-Toques, such as Andoni Luis Aduriz, announced that they were removing eels from their menus as a measure to prevent their extinction. And at the beginning of December, more than 300 scientists demanded in a manifesto to the Spanish and European administrations the total cessation of the exploitation of the species.
"Would you eat a lynx [endangered species] stew? No, right? Well, it's the same with the eel," says Andoni Luis Aduriz, owner of Mugaritz, a restaurant with two Michelin stars. It took him time to take the step of not offering the species on the menu, despite knowing his battered situation. "Three or four years ago I wrote about the eel and I was shocked by the data, so much so that I made a T-shirt with endangered species and the word eel in it, but I said to myself, 'I can't do this alone,'" he explains. Now, seeing other cooks announce the decision to leave the eel aside, "I went ahead." Not all the members of Euro-Toques – an organisation with more than 3,500 chefs from 18 countries – have joined the initiative yet, but it is "due to lack of knowledge". Now they are trying to raise awareness among colleagues and others. The good thing, he adds, "is that we have come out of the closet and this is unstoppable, because we are risking the future of the species."
Eels in the River Ter, in Girona.Lluís Zamora
The eel doesn't have it easy. The conclusions of the ICES for the latest report – the one used by the European authorities to determine fishing quotas – indicate that in the North Sea (between the United Kingdom and Norway) there are 0.4 eels for every 100 that entered before. In the rest of Europe, this index is at nine specimens, explains Estibaliz Díaz, Spanish representative in the ICES eel group and researcher at the AZTI marine technology centre. But it has been decided to maintain the same measures as in 2023: a six-month ban, which coincides with the migratory period of the species. Although within that time it is allowed to fish for a month both fry and adults, and in the case of the eel (the small ones) 50 more days are given for catch for restocking.
To reintroduce the species into rivers in northern Europe, where they have disappeared, eels (fry) are caught from southern riverbeds, especially in France. But there's no evidence that this has led them back to the Sargasso Sea off the southeastern U.S. coast to reproduce, the researchers warn. "They are taken from places where there are not enough and they move to another place, but they can become disoriented on their return," says Díaz. Also, "does it make sense to release them where there are dams and hydroelectric plants?" he adds. What has been shown is that locally they do well, because they gain weight, but if they don't reproduce "it's worthless".
The Dam Barrier
The species faces many other dangers, not only fishing: the impassable dams that mark the rivers, the poor state of the rivers or the illegal trade, as it is a highly appreciated species in the Asian market, where its price, already very high, is multiplied. Last Friday, the Civil Guard arrested a person who was transporting 170 kilos of live eels in cork packaging in a rented car, camouflaged among boxes of clothes. The merchandise would have reached 200,000 euros, at 1,176 per kilo. The man is accused of trafficking and illegal trade in protected species and smuggling.
The species is also a luxury product in the legal market, especially the first catch, which this year reached 8,135 euros per kilo at the Ribadesella fish market. It is a symbolic price that immediately plummets and, although it varies greatly, it remains between 400 and 600 euros per kilo for the fry. At Christmas time it is one of the star dishes and exceeds 1,000 euros per kilo. Is its gastronomic value so high? "A lot of times we eat symbols, which make you feel special, and that happens in some way with products that have a high price. Within that world is the eel," Aduriz responds.
Basilio Otero, president of the National Federation of Fishermen's Guilds of Spain, saw better times due to the abundance of the species and the prices. "Of course we have problems with the eel," he replies. He is from Nois, a small town in Lugo, and he remembers when they fished for eel there. "But they built a sewage treatment plant that prevents the passage and the water that comes out is not of great quality; That's how it ended," he explains. He believes that it is necessary to take measures, "but that they do not only affect fishermen". He was pleased that, at least this year, the rules had been harmonised for the whole of Europe, with no country being able to fish more days than others. The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food responds to EL PAÍS that the measures are not only aimed at fisheries, but also seek to restore and improve ecosystems – the species has lost 80% of its habitat in the Iberian Peninsula.
Scientists are asking the administration to adopt global conservation measures to have an effect because the species is a single population, which is distributed from northern Europe to the Mediterranean Sea, in such a way that a specimen from Morocco can reproduce with one from Norway and they do so in the Sargasso Sea. The eels begin to arrive in November to the Iberian Peninsula from there, after traveling about 6,000 kilometers, and measure about seven centimeters and weigh between 0.25 and 0.35 grams – up to 3,500 individuals can enter in one kilo. From there they go up the rivers and begin to grow, passing the yellow eel stage until they become silvery eels due to the color of their belly. It is time to return to the Sargasso Sea to breed and for the new hatchlings to make the journey to the shores of the Mediterranean, where they can end up cooked with garlic.
You can follow CLIMA Y MEDIO AMBIENTE on Facebook and X, or sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter
Special Limited Time Offer
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
Read more
I'm already a subscriber
_