In the UK the EMPs will be set at the River Basin District (RBD) level, as defined under the Water Framework Directive. The aim of this EMP is to describe the nature of the eel population and fishery in the RBD, to assess whether the stock is meeting its 40% escapement target, and to present management actions that will ensure the long-term viability of the eel population.
Each Member State is required to
1) Set management targets based on an assessment of potential silver eel production under conditions of no anthropogenic mortality and high (pre 1980) levels of recruitment.
2) Estimate the present day silver eel production in relation to this target (i.e. estimate compliance with the management target).
3) Develop and take the management actions that are necessary to achieve or maintain compliance.
4) Collect data sufficient to support steps 1 to 3 above, and to demonstrate whether compliance will be achieved in the future, i.e. that the actions identified in the EMP will lead to the recovery of the eel population.
Scottish management plan
The primary management strategy adopted by Scotland was the closure of fisheries and the ban off fishing for all life stages of the eel.
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Eel Management Units |
Bodies Responsible for the Implementation of the EMP |
Bodies responsibilities |
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Scotland River Basin District |
·       Marine Scotland
·       Scottish Environment Protection AgencyÂ
·       Scottish Natural Heritage |
·       MSS – data collection and management of EMP implementation. ·       SEPA – Contaminants in eels and Eel parasites and pathogens programmes. ·       SNH – Do not have any notable input but are mentioned as a responsible organisation in the EMP. |
Glass eel and elver stocks data – There are no data available regarding numbers or distribution of glass eels in Scotland RBD.
Yellow eel stock data- Largely comprised of electrofishing data that has a significant degree of variation and uncertainty to the reliability of this data.
Silver eels stock data – created from three sites Girnock Burn, Baddoch Burn and Shieldaig River.
Marine/Estuarine eel stock data – There are no current data available regarding marine or estuarine eels in Scottish waters.
Scotland’s monitoring (Marine Scotland)
Girnock Burn – (tributary of the Dee altitude 250-350m) Smolt trap that captures silver eels migrating to sea. Data collected from 1967-1981 and 2003, 2007 and 2008. There is a possibility that recruitment to the burn has been affected by the construction of the trap (Chadwick et al 2007) which acts as a complete barrier to upstream movement in salmonids. Nevertheless young eels are still caught above the trap in reasonable numbers (Fig 20). In 2008 an elver pass was constructed to allow free access.
Baddoch Burn – (upper Aberdeenshire Dee >415m) The trap on this catchment was built in 1989. Partial collection of data on migrating eels began in 2002, with complete data available only from 2006 to 2008. The trap is not thought to impede upstream access for eels significantly.
Shieldaig River – (Low catchment site 0-240m altitude) The trap on the Shieldaig was built in 1999, and data on migrating eels was recorded in full for all subsequent years excluding 2000, 2001, 2005 and 2005. The trap is not thought to impede elver access to the catchment.
Eel fisheries in Scotland
Eel fishing in Scotland has never been regulated or licensed and as a consequence there is no formally recorded information on the eel fishery, either past or present. An established eel fishery on Loch Leven was alluded to in historical documents as early as 1573 (Burns-Begg 1874, cited in Thorpe 1974). During the 1960s to 1970s eel catches in Scotland were estimated at around 10-40 tonnes per annum. A survey carried out in 1989 showed only 17 eel fisheries in operation, with eel catches ranging from 0.25 to 10.76 tonnes and none providing a sole income. In 2003 the total fishery took 2 to 3 tonnes, with yellow eels dominating the catches. The last of these fisheries (Lunan Burn, Tayside) closed in 2006 after its catch declined to 5% of the original level.
It is now illegal to fish for any life stage of eel without a license. Licenses are unlikely to be considered for commercial fishing.
Legislation
The Freshwater Fish Conservation (Prohibition on Fishing for Eels) (Scotland) Regulations 2008 in January 2009 as part of the Scotland RBD EMP. The Regulations were made under section 51A of the Salmon and Freshwater Fisheries (Consolidation) (Scotland) Act 2003. The effect of the Regulations is to prohibit fishing by any method for eels (Anguilla anguilla) in Scotland, except on application and under the authority of a licence granted by Scottish Ministers.
