Monitoring Eels in Northern Ireland

In July our eel man Jack spent a week surveying with the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) in Northern Ireland. This was part of a long-term survey on Loch Erne specifically focusing on the European eel (Anguilla anguilla). This survey helps inform our understanding of eel population dynamics over long-term data sets, while also giving us the opportunity to collect other valuable data such as parasite distribution and load.

Jack has spent a lot of time in NI working on eel fisheries, both commercial and conservation based, all steered towards sustainability and improving our understanding of the species. Jacks visit will help us continue to learn and understand our own eel populations here in the Forth to help direct conservation projects and improve their survival in our rivers.

It was great to see a government agency investing in eel on a long-term basis. Long-term monitoring of species is essential if we hope to understand them. Now more than ever we should be working on improving data so it can shape action. This is something desperately needed in Scotland. In recent years there has been an increase in public interest surrounding eel. We hope to see similar interest given by Scottish Government and effort made to improve their monitoring of this species to align with NI.

As you can see these are some fine specimens of eel – we rarely see eels this size in our Scottish surveys. In one of the pictures below you can see a great comparison between a yellow eel (immature) and a silver/silvering eel (a maturing eel). Yellow is top eel and silver/silvering is the bottom eel.

Thank you to IFM and other partners for funding this work. A range of resources will be developed from the material gathered in NI including ID sheets, training workshops and monitoring protocols. All will be available through IFM and FRT channels.

This picture shows two eels in different life stages. The top eel is a yellow eel. This is the freshwater stage in which the eel will grow until ready to go to sea. The lower eel is the silver eel stage. This eel is changing, readying itself for the long migration to the Sargasso Sea.

A large broadhead eel that has just had its fat content read. This important information can help us understand the quality of eel within a body of water.