Eel catch from a Dutch vessel. The European eel is a single stock and is critically endangered.

Photo: Tromp Willem van Urk/Mostphotos

The European eel is critically endangered. Since the period 1960-1979, catches of adult eels have fallen by almost 90 per cent. The amount of eel fry reaching the North Sea area, including Swedish coastal waters, has decreased by as much as 99.5 per cent during the same period.

For more than two decades, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES) has advocated that any human impact on eel stocks should be minimised. Since 2021, it has become even stricter, emphasising that, in line with the precautionary principle, all catches should be zero, including those of glass eels caught for release elsewhere; known as restocking.

Despite this, the EU has continued to allow both commercial and recreational fishing of eels, albeit with some restrictions. According to catch data compiled by ICES, 2,170 tonnes of eel were caught by EU countries and the UK during 2023. 

"It is deplorable to continue fishing on an endangered species," says Sara Söderström, fisheries scientist at the Baltic Sea Centre.

Seasonal closure with little effect

Eel fishery is not covered by the multiannual plan for Baltic Sea fisheries and no total allowable catch or fishing quotas are set for the stock. However, conservation measures for eel, including possible restrictions on fishing, are still discussed annually by the Council of Ministers, usually at its December meeting. 

In recent years, the Council has decided on periodic closures of eel fisheries and this year's meeting on 9-10 December was no exception. The eel fishery will be closed from 15 September 2025 to 15 March 2026, but the Baltic Sea countries, through the cooperation body Baltfish, can decide to postpone the closure. In this case, the Commission must be notified by 1 May. In addition, countries may decide on their own breaks in the closure.
"There is almost no eel fishing during the period from January to March, so closing the fishery during this period is frivolous  and only aimed at avoiding effective restrictions on fishing," says fisheries scientist Henrik Svedäng. 

When should the closure take place for it to be effective?

“Fishing should of course be stopped altogether, but if it is a time-limited closure during any six-month period, it should be scheduled for July-December in all Swedish coastal waters where eel fishing is still allowed”, says Henrik Svedäng.

Counterproductive restocking

The Council of Ministers' decision on eel fisheries also applies to the glass eel fishery, which mainly takes place in southern Europe. In addition to direct consumption, glass eels are caught for transport by truck to other parts of Europe, where they restocked are released into lakes and coastal waters to boost native stocks and support domestic eel fishery. This is considered by many countries, Sweden included, as a conservation measure for eels, although ICES scientists have been clear on that there is no scientific support for the practice to have a positive effect on the eel stock, and that it should be stopped.

Researcher Sara Söderström. Photo: Björn Eklund

"Eel has a complex life cycle that begins and ends in the Sargasso Sea. It cannot be bred in captivity and all glass eels are caught from the wild stock, which hinders natural migration," explains Sara Söderström.

In Sweden, glass eels are widely restocked in rivers and lakes upstream of hydropower plants, which causes many of them to get stuck and die in hydropower turbines when they, as mature eels, start their journey back to the Sargasso Sea.

The purpose of this translocation, interrupting the eel’s natural migratory trajectory, has until recently always been for the sake of the fishery. Swedish hydropower companies are legally obliged to compensate fisheries for the impact of their plants on the eel population, and thereby the fishing opportunities, in inland waters. In 2008 however, restocking became one of four measures described in the Swedish eel management plan.

"Today restocking for ‘helping’ the European eel has the character of letter of indulgence, as popes used to issue, as there is no evidence that the glass eels that are translocated have a larger chance of surviving than they would otherwise – rather the opposite," says Henrik Svedäng. "In addition, eel restocking risks spreading viruses and diseases."

Management plan up for revision

Since the adoption of the EU Eel Regulation in 2007, all EU countries are obliged to create eel management plans with the objective to reduce anthropogenic mortalities to permit "with high probability the escapement to the sea of at least 40 % of the silver eel biomass relative to the best estimate of escapement that would have existed if no anthropogenic influences had impacted the stock".

The Swedish eel management plan is up for revision this year, and the management has recently been evaluated by an international panel engaged by the Swedish Research Council Formas.

In addition to the eel restocking mentioned above, the current plan includes measures in three other areas: reducing fishing, improving possibilities for downstream migration (reducing turbine mortality) and control.

However, despite the 16 years passed since the plan was put into operation, the goal to significantly increase eel escapement from Sweden are far from being met.

In its assessment, the international panel recommends that all restocking, including that carried out by hydroelectric companies in inland waters, should cease as it could do more harm than good for restoration of the broader European eel population.

Few measures to decrease fishing mortality

Further recommendations from the panel are largely focused on improving habitat connectivity via upstream and downstream migration success, following that the lack of such success is what tops the panel’s list of current threats to the restoration of eel in Sweden:

1. 

   The research council Formas has commissioned an international panel to carry out an evaluation of the Swedish eel management.
   lack of upstream and downstream migration success 
2. illegal fishing anywhere 
3. legal inland freshwater fisheries 
4. small-scale coastal fisheries in the Baltic.

"This list of threats appears to be randomly assembled and has no connection to reality. For the small population of eel that inhabits Sweden today, there is no lack of habitats, as they can grow up perfectly well by the coast, so inland upstream migration is not a main issue," comments Henrik Svedäng, continuing: “The mortality in hydropower turbines is almost exclusively due to the practise of restocking eels upstream those turbines. If restocking discontinues, as the panel rightly suggest, this mortality will be reduced.”

When it comes to illegal fisheries, stated as the second most severe threat to Swedish eels, the authors of the report admit that "the scale and consequences for fishing mortality are unknown without quantitative estimates of the activity".

”What is well-known is that the legal fisheries catch several tonnes of mature eel every year, that otherwise would have good possibility to escape to the Sargasso Sea and contribute to recruitment and the recovery of the stock”, says Henrik Svedäng.

The evaluation by Formas concludes that the closure of the yellow eel fishery on the Swedish West Coast in 2012 was critically important and may have had the greatest potential impact on eel escapement since the plan was put in place.

However, despite the ICES recommendation to allow zero catches of eel, the panel does not recommend that the Swedish fishery be closed, but that it be slightly restricted by reducing the annual catch limits from the current 8,000 kg per eel fisher to 1,000 kg or less. 

Incorrect reference to ICES advice

In a discussion on the sustainability of the Swedish eel fishery, the panel quotes ICES, as having said the following in a “current assessment”:

"'advises that when the precautionary approach is applied for European eel, all anthropogenic impacts (e.g. caused by recreational and commercial fishing on all life stages, hydro-power, pumping stations, and pollution) that decrease production and escapement of silver eels should be reduced to, or kept as close as possible to zero...’ (ICES 2021, pg 9).”

This means, argues the panel, that ICES "acknowledges that some mortality may simply be unavoidable", implying that some fishery could be acceptable.

The quoted sentence, however, does not come from "ICES Advice on fishing opportunities, catch, and effort" from 2021, as one might be misled to believe, but instead from a report from a workshop on the future of eel advice. The above quotation is used in the report in a discussion about how advice from previous years have in fact been misinterpreted.

On the following page, the working group considers that the advice should be clarified:

"In the case of eel, and given the state of the stock, WKFEA recommends that ‘as close as possible to zero’ be replaced by ‘zero’, and that ‘catches’ be replaced by ‘all recreational and commercial catches of all life stages in all habitats should be kept equal to zero’." 

This is also how the wording of the advice sheet published in 2021, as well as in 2022, 2023 and 2024, have been formulated. 

Researcher Henrik Svedäng.

Henrik Svedäng is highly critical also to this part of the evaluation report.

“By misquoting ICES advice, the report diminishes the clear message from science that the eel stock cannot be fished at all, by suggesting that fishing is just one of many human pressures, including hydropower, that eels have to endure during their lifetime,” he points out in a recently published debate article in a Swedish newspaper, "This erroneous view, which is contrary to the scientific view of the matter, has for many years been a mantra even in Swedish eel management."

Examining a transferable licence system

The revision of the Swedish eel management plans is carried out by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management (SwAM) and is to be reported to the Government Offices by 1 august. The assignment includes identifying and introducing appropriate measures that promote and improve the conditions for the survival of eels in Swedish waters, but also to specifically evaluate the effectiveness of restocking and to describe the possibilities for limited small-scale fishing for eel. The agency is also required to investigate the conditions for allowing generational change in eel fishing by enabling the transfer of the eel fishing licences.

"And as enforcement of efficient restrictions on fishery drags on, the situation for the European eel is gradually deteriorating," notes Henrik Svedäng.

Text: Lisa Bergqvist