Sustainable Eel Group

ZSL currently sit on the SEG board as the conservation representatives and provide input on potential conservation initiatives such as; the building of an eel habitats model, establishing eel population distributions, highlighting key barriers to migration (including pumps) and to identifying the best sites for restocking.

Over the past 18 months there have a been a number of meetings that have taken place across Europe, and ZSL have been key in engaging stakeholders outside of the UK to encourage the development of links to SEG in Germany, Denmark, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, Spain and Italy. Much of this work has been in relation to the European eel fishery, highlighting the importance of collaborations across sectors in conserving and managing the European eel sustainably.

ZSL has also been key in developing a prioritisation of habitat improvement projects across the UK. This process was lead by the Association of River Trusts (ART) and involved collating information from a range of sources to determine where habitat improvement could offer the greatest benefit for the European eel – be this opening up inaccessible habitat using eel passes, or carrying out other management actions that would increase the wetted area available for eels and other aquatic species.

In the future, ZSL will be involved in other SEG activities such as addressing the problems of hydropower stations to eels and establishing the IUCN Anguillid Specialist Sub-Group.

For more information on SEG please visit the Sustainable Eel Group website