Eel prices soar in Asia, fuelling illegal supply from  Europe

 

A great demand in Asia has sent prices of eels soaring again – by almost 300% since last year.  With their populations dwindling in the wild, eel prices had been rising sharply for years until 2014, when they dropped for a while in Japan, the world's number one eel importer, on recovering farm harvests.

 

But since last year, prices have been rising again due to very limited supply in the market. Known to be rich in protein and unsaturated fatty acids, which are said to decrease cholesterol and lower blood pressure, eel is a highly priced in Japan, China, Hongkong, South Korea, in fact even in Myanmar.

 

In the Philippines, the fish is also valued highly that it sells for about 600 pesos a kilogramme (US$13/kg), four times more than the price of chicken.

 

Because of the supply crunch, eel farms across the region are scrambling to increase production to meet rising demand. Their efforts are hampered, however, by lack of eel fingerlings called glass eels or elvers.

 

Although known to be a fresh-water species, eels actually start their lifecycle in the sea. Young eels live in rivers and streams for years. When female eels become mature, they migrate back into the sea to lay their eggs.

 

These eggs turn into larvae in the sea and after around 18 months they become glass eels, so called for their transparent appearance. Ocean currents carry these glass eels towards the shores, where their pigmentation becomes darker. When they reach estuaries, they migrate further up into rivers to feed and grow.

 

Glass eels caught in the wild can be cultured in ponds and raised into mature eels.

 

Elvers are critically in short supply now that their prices in Asia have soared to about US$1,300/kg to US$1,700/kg from only US$200/kg in 2010.

 

 

In recent years, "more eels are leaving Europe illegally than are being consumed legally," says Andrew Kerr, chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group (SEG), an organisation made up of scientists, conservationists and fishing industry representatives working together to aid the recovery of the European Eel across its range. "All those eels that are being caught and illegally traded should really be used for restocking, and moved all over Europe."

 

There have been many arrests and eel seizures across Europe since the ban. But the illegal trade continues, EU fishery authorities say, adding that the trade involves countries such as France, Spain, Bulgaria, Greece, Romania, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, which variously act as source or transit countries.

 

"The scale of this problem has grabbed the attention of the European Commission, which in February published its EU Action Plan Against Wildlife Trafficking, a document that underlines the importance of intensifying enforcement to reduce illegal wildlife trade into and out of the EU. More than anything else, the EU is typically recognised as a transit region for trafficked goods—but the new report highlights an important exception: the huge quantities of smuggled European eel that arise from the region," an EU report says.

 

"There are large volumes of eels that are smuggled out of Europe, that's one of the biggest problems for us in the EU," Commission sources said. The report details several arrests, including the 2011-2012 Spanish case of smugglers who were caught trying to carry 1,500 kilograms of glass eels to Asia—a quantity that would have been worth EUR 1.6 million in China. That seizure led to the arrests of 14 people. Far from being opportunistic, the trade appears to be run by organised criminals, the Commission sources added.

 

"Even if you have a seizure within the EU, it's difficult to find out who's behind it," says Werner Gowitzke, a national expert on environmental crime at Europol, the EU's official law enforcement agency.

 

Although they may have an inkling where these smuggled glass eels finally land, they don't have solid proof against any group.

 

Europe's main eel fisheries lie in Spain and France, but "the only country that has the capacity to catch tens of tonnes is France," says Kerr, since it receives the bulk of glass eels migrating into its rivers—three quarters of the European total.

 

It is possible, according to Kerr, that a sizeable chunk of the legal catch is being diverted from the European legal market this year into the illegal trade, and ultimately Asia, says Kerr.