Wales Environment Link (WEL) and Natural Resources Wales to protect endangered eels

Wednesday, September 5, 2018

Organisations team up to protect endangered eels

Conservation partnership teams with NRW to help protect eels in Merthyr.

Wales Environment Link (WEL) species champion initiative – partnership between Salmon & Trout Conservation Cymru (S&TC) and the South East Wales Rivers Trust – have teamed with Natural Resources Wales to help protect critically endangered eels in Merthyr.

General - river eel

The initiative will see the removal of barriers to eel migration combined with the release of a number of young eels into Cyfarthfa Park Lake. The lake and surrounding waters off the upper Taff have had no eel population for over one hundred years, since the construction of multiple weirs along the river’s length blocking their migration from the sea. The construction of over one million similar barriers across other European rivers means eels can only access 10% of their former habitats. This has seen eel numbers decline between 90 and 95%, meaning they are now classed as ‘critically endangered’.

As part of this initiative eels were sourced by the South East Wales Rivers Trust. They were placed in batches of 50 baby eels in fish tanks across eight schools and two education centres to be raised. The programme forms part of a larger European-wide initiative to help increase eel populations by restoring wetlands and removing barriers to the eels’ traditional migration routes.

A spokesman from S&TC Cymru said: "We are facing the very real prospect of our rivers and lakes becoming totally devoid of European eels and it is therefore incumbent upon us to act with urgency if we are to reverse their catastrophic decline."

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