The Pikers Pit

I saw an interesting piece,on the news this morning reporting that 60,000 Eels had been restocked into the Warks Avon at various locations above Tewkesbury, in a bid to help populations recover.

The Eels were all captured as juveniles, fed and grown on, then released. Was a good story.

I couldn't find the original piece, but it looks like quite a lot is going on to try and help these fish:
https://www.sustainableeelgroup.org/tho ... -and-avon/

Just wondering if it is still legal to trap elvers commercially for consumption? If it is then it should be stopped immediately with an exemption for the purpose of growing on and restocking our rivers.

Regards

Martin

Commercial legal eel fishermen are few and far between these days, there are a couple in the Fens but they have some kind of grandfather rights and no new ones are being licenced I believe.

The problem as always, is illegal fishing. Was a massive problem in the South West with large scale criminal enterprises involved due to the value of the elvers.

There is little to no enforcement of environmental crime in the UK, just look at what the water companies have been doing...
A friend who is an environmental health officer for the local authority tried to get the EA to intervene on some large scale very bad agricultural practice in the area, and was told in no uncertain terms that what was happening was an offence, but the available EA enforcement officers would be something like 200 years getting to it.

Did you see the news story in 2020 where a guy was caught and found guilty of smuggling £50 million worth of glass eels out of the UK, and got a suspended sentence and 240 hours community service? Our government does not care one iota for the natural environment, simple as.

Fentiger01 wrote: ↑Mon Jan 22 2024 10:49 -

I saw an interesting piece,on the news this morning reporting that 60,000 Eels had been restocked into the Warks Avon at various locations above Tewkesbury, in a bid to help populations recover.

The Eels were all captured as juveniles, fed and grown on, then released. Was a good story.

I couldn't find the original piece, but it looks like quite a lot is going on to try and help these fish:
https://www.sustainableeelgroup.org/tho ... -and-avon/

About time too, Dave
The eels is probably the most important freshwater species and if numbers were where they should be, the environment would be in a better place!

Cheers, Alan

I concur with that statement entirely.