Neville Ficklings Angling Times Article

[Mark7]

I can see why he felt insulted. To turn round and say that the only reason somebody 'believes' something is for money, when they have indicated otherwise, is insulting. I have no idea how many eels one shop sells for bait, but I'd be amazed if it amounted to much.

 

"To date we have not asked for commercial netting to cease, but we have asked anglers to treat eels with respect, and not use or buy them as bait."

I've had numerous news releases from the EA regarding illegal elver poachers over the years, and most of these seem to be for the restaurant trade. Wouldn't the consumption of baby eels be a better place to start targeting one's conservation efforts, rather than start publicly suggesting that anglers have somehow contributed to the decline? According to your quote, DEFRA have acknowledged that there is a problem, so what are they doing about it? ICES and CITES are also quoted as "saying stuff", but what are they actually doing? What can they do?

 

It just seems to me that you're starting from the bottom up, by having a go at anglers and one specific shop keeper. I'd have thought that it would have been best to aim a bit higher.

 

One bit of research I'd be interested in; out of, say, 100 shop bought dead eel pike baits, I wonder how many would have been killed by pike anyway.

 

Also, I wonder what effect signal crayfish have had on eel populations, as they must consume a vast amount of the food that was traditionally the mainstay of the eels (and a fair number of eels themselves, no doubt!).

 

By the way, I haven't read the article, so am just replying to what I see here. I'm not so much "Eels: bring me the scientific evidence" as "Eels: blame the right people".

 

Morning Elton

 

The reasoning behind the current post was that Neville, using his influential and widely read column, had stated that he did not think the situation was that bad, and that there was no scientific proof to support our case. We needed to set the record straight. The NAC went through a difficult time in 2007/2208, losing several members who were key players in eel conservation. It is only in the last few months that we have felt that we are organisationally strong enough to start waving the flag again, hence all this "eel" activity. As for blaming the right people, we are working hard on the commercial fishing issues. We are attending the IFM Eel conference over 2 days next week, and will come away from there with a good overview of how commercial eel fishing will be influenced by the Eel Management Plans. This will give us the backgound infomation that we need to tackle the commercial fishing issues and the wider implications of the EMPs. We are not "blaming" anglers for the demise of the eel, but we are asking for a symbolic gesture: for all anglers to respect the eel, and do as much as possibly to preserve it for future generations. Oh, and I like the description of Neville as a "shopkeeper". Were you thinking of "Open All Hours" or Royston Veysey?

 

Regards

 

 

Mark

[Anderoo]

I have seen a tremendous drop in eel populations in the fens since first fishing there over 25 years ago, and I fully support the work of Mark and the others at the NAC. I am a hypocrite though, as the one or two times I go zander fishing each season I do take a bag of eel sections with me. Time for me to be a bit more responsible, I think.

 

As for an irresponsible and sensationalist article in one of the comics - unfortunately I am far from surprised.

 

It's a shame that the one place they appear to really thrive at the moment is the one lake I really wish they'd leave!

[gozzer]

It's a shame that the one place they appear to really thrive at the moment is the one lake I really wish they'd leave!

 

I've heard there's a little trick that Rich uses, you might want to try it Andrew.

 

He just drops a little sign in the swim, it directs all the eels to Budgies swim.

End of problem (for you).

 

John.

[Dick Dastardly]

I've heard there's a little trick that Rich uses, you might want to try it Andrew.

 

He just drops a little sign in the swim, it directs all the eels to Budgies swim.

End of problem (for you).

 

John.

 

Hmmmmmmmmmm

[Dick Dastardly]

It's a shame that the one place they appear to really thrive at the moment is the one lake I really wish they'd leave!

 

One water I bream fished had a big population of eels as well.Not quite as big an average size as Winghams eels but still all quite big.They up and dissapeared one year and once again you could use "animal" baits for bream! Heres hoping!

 

But if they dont Im going to just return to non eel baits such as flake and to a degree corn.If I feel I really must drown some dendras then I will embrace all the wonderfull Anguillas that come to visit me!

 

Maybe we could do our bit for eel conservation by "donating" ours (er all of ouurs!) to waters that are going short?

[ColinW]

The problem I have is the complete lack of scientific evidence to support the idea that preserving our eels will help the problem in any way.

No-one (literally) knows where our eels go, should they decide not to eat my expensive peeler crab bait. It may well be that the elvers resulting from our eels mysterious matings end up in South America (for example). If our elvers come entirely from North American eels then there may be a "global cycle" of a hundred years between what we do now and its effect, if any.

Lack of elvers may be nothing to do with our adult eel stocks and entirely due to changes in the Atlantic Ocean's currents.

[James P]

Judging by the amount of people driving around my area with huge, cavernous elver nets strapped to their roof i'm not surprised eel numbers are in decline!

 

The vast majority of all the elvers caught around here in Somerset are shipped off to Japan for people to enjoy as a delicacy. One word: Capitalism!

 

James

[luckyjim]

I wrote my masters thesis on the commercial whaling industry, and the attitude shown here is scarily reminiscent of commercial lobbying at the peak of the industry, when the decline in numbers of the great whale species first became obvious (the early 1960s). The industry constantly cited scientific uncertainty to justify continued overexploitation, saying that nobody knew enough about whales' breeding habits, replacement rates, and migration patterns to warrant a curtailment of quotas or a temporary cessation of whaling to allow recovery. All this despite desperate entreaties from scientists to brake exploitation of the resource until further data became available.

 

As I'm sure most of you are aware, by the mid-1960s whale populations had experienced a catastrophic decline, from which they are nowhere near recovery, even after a 25 year moratorium on commercial whaling.

 

We ignore what scientific data we do have at our peril.

[Guerilla]

I haven't read the whole article but just wanted to put my oar in:

Live Anderoo, I've noticed a massive reduction in eels from the tidal reaches of the Norfolk Bure and Yare rivers. Even fishing corn and bread would get regular takes in previous years. I returned to fishing this year and fishing maggot and worm only landed one eel all summer.

I expect all the otters have eaten them on the other river, the Waveney?

[Worms]

The problem I have is the complete lack of scientific evidence to support the idea that preserving our eels will help the problem in any way.

No-one (literally) knows where our eels go, should they decide not to eat my expensive peeler crab bait. It may well be that the elvers resulting from our eels mysterious matings end up in South America (for example). If our elvers come entirely from North American eels then there may be a "global cycle" of a hundred years between what we do now and its effect, if any.

Lack of elvers may be nothing to do with our adult eel stocks and entirely due to changes in the Atlantic Ocean's currents.

European eels are European eels and American eels are American eels. Those facts are undisputed (DNA taxonomy). The eels that turn up on our shores are declining and the market for elvers and eels is obviously removing large numbers of potential breeding stock from the system.

 

A decline in the number of elvers reaching our shores will obviously be connected to the adult eel stocks as they (adults) do not return! The only available stock for sustaining the population are the elvers. If they are already declining then to maintain or increase levels you have to remove the population limiting factors such as netting etc.

 

As anglers we should be viewing the eel as a valuable resource for our waters. When salmon numbers declined and measures were introduced that limited commercial and pleasure fishing complaints were minimal (in angling anyway) and the salmon fisheries have shown an increase in fish in just ten years. Commonsense measures were introduced and an improvement was the result.

 

It is not possible to prove that protecting eels by limitations on fishing for them (commercial or pleasure) will work but with a head in the sand view such as 'it can't be proved so why bother' there would be no hope.

 

There may well be issues regarding the survival of eels that we do not understand but by standing united as a group (anglers) and doing the most we can for the protection of eels is more likely to to bolster support from other factions and we may end up helping to increase dwindling eel numbers.

 

The fact that this Neville Fickling character won't even contribute to the subject just makes him appear rather pathetic in my view. As a big name in pike angling I would have thought that by taking a commonsense stance over eels and not using them or selling them as bait would have a significant effect on other pike angler's habits.

 

I suppose if there's nothing wrong with the eel spawning and recruitment perhaps it is the otters eating them all