Elvers (fish) : The elver (word coming from the Latin caecus meaning “blind”) is the name given to fry byeels (silver eels), small fish very popular throughout the west Atlantic coast, angulas in Spain to the south of Morocco (anguillas) living for a few months in brackish water (estuaries) where they are fished from November to March.
With a maximum of 2 fry per kilogram, the eel larva measures 900 mm when it leaves the Sargasso Sea to reach continental waters where it becomes an adult in twelve months. During its perilous journey, the European eel glass eel encounters many dangers. It is the prey of predatory fish, turtles, seabirds and then the inhabitants of the estuary and it must face the sometimes very artificial route of the rivers and streams where it will still have to escape its main adversary, the fisherman, to survive.
Until the 1970s, glass eel fishing was mainly a secondary activity intended to supplement the diet of residents, farmers or residents of waterways for the most part.
The “poor man’s dish” was frequently on the menu, even in school canteens where glass eels were served cold, in the form of bread. When they were too abundant, the chickens happily feasted on them... At that time, eel being considered a pest, fishing for these fry had few limits. Little by little, a market was organized and the activity became professional, thus greatly increasing the quantities caught. As demand is growing, the quantities fished have also been, reaching 4 t/year in the years 000-1978, compared to only 1979 tonnes in 110. The buyers of this commodity, formerly local, are now foreign countries such as Spain, Mexico, Russia.
Recently, a new market has opened with Asian countries requiring live glass eels for breeding. Indeed, it has until now been impossible to breed eels in captivity and the only known solution is to collect fry. Glass eels are raised in China and sold as adults in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan where their flesh is very popular.
Selling prices for glass eels range between 150 and 200 euros per kilogram; we even noted the record price of 1 euros.
Knowing that it takes around 2 fry to obtain one kilogram, fishermen take a significant number of glass eels which will never reach adulthood and will therefore not reproduce in the Sargasso Sea. As a result, the question of poaching quickly arose, causing a reduction in the resource or even the disappearance of the eel. Several solutions have been put in place to try to remedy this.
Glass eel fishing regulations: Today, glass eel fishing is strictly regulated in France.
Only licensed fishermen are authorized to practice this activity, limited in time to five months, generally from November to March.
Boats must not exceed a length of 10 meters, a power of 150 horsepower and a speed of 3 knots. Their very fine mesh sieves (diameter of 1,20 meters maximum) are equipped with a long handle when the glass eels are swimming at depth or with a shorter handle when they are on the surface. Fishing hours are themselves regulated.
The practice of this fishing by professionals sometimes reaches 50% mortality (not to mention other fry, bass, shrimp, sole, etc., which are thrown overboard in a composted state).
So that glass eels and other migrants (salmon, shad, sea lamprey, sea trout, stickleback, etc.) can better migrate upstream and downstream, dams must be equipped with fish passages. There are devices specifically designed for glass eels.
Despite this, European eel populations have collapsed in around thirty years, to the point that the eel, which was one of the most common fish until the 1970s (when most dams were already constructed) has become an endangered species and classified as vulnerable by theIUCN and the European Union. Several causes are pointed out, which undoubtedly combine their effects:
– overly intensive fishing which in the second half of the 20th century reached the stage of “overfishing”,
– poaching (one glass eel in ten is fished illegally).
– the significant releases of fresh water caused by large hydroelectric dams,
– pollution (the eel is an oily fish which accumulates many fat-soluble pollutants (pesticides, dioxins, furans and PCBs in particular). It readily feeds in sediments which over the years have accumulated heavy metals, pesticides and many other pollutants. It is possible that females and males are at the time of reproduction (in the Sargasso Sea) victims of the effects of endocrine disruptors that they accumulated in their bodies when they grew up in fresh waters.
– the introduction of invasive species and parasites
– the reduction of wetlands (in size, number and quality).
These are all factors contributing to the extinction of the glass eel in many regions of Europe and America.
In the southwest of France they are called pibale. Pibale is eaten either fried or inolive oil, with some Espelette pepper and lemon juice or with a parsley, the pibales being deglazed White wine (sailor).