Eel-gotten gains
Endangered eels are being trafficked in the EU, making it the ‘world’s biggest wildlife crime’.
PARIS: Billions of euros worth of critically endangered eels are being trafficked each year from Europe, ending up on tables in China and Japan in what campaigners say is “the largest wildlife crime on Earth”.
Stocks of European eel (anguilla anguilla) have plummeted 90% in three decades as mankind has developed the wetlands and dammed the rivers it needs to grow and feed in, and experts fear criminal gangs smuggling the lucrative fish are pushing it towards oblivion.
Despite growing alarm from conservationists, hundreds of tonnes of eels are still legally and illegally fished each year.
In France – which catches more of the fish than any other EU state – the issue has taken on political dimensions.
“There’s around 10% of stocks left compared to 30 years ago due to habitat loss and what we’ve done to the migration pathways in Europe,” Andrew Kerr, chairman of the Sustainable Eel Group (SEG) that works to conserve the species, said.
The eel’s vertiginous decline has provoked some action from governments and law enforcement agencies.
It is now listed in the CITES international convention on trade in endangered species, resulting in strict national catch quotas.
The problem, according to Michel Vignaud, head of fishing regulation at France’s National Biodiversity Agency, is exploding Asian demand for a product viewed as both a delicacy and an aphrodisiac.
“We cannot legally export eels outside the EU, but the prices are different in Asia. There is a real Asian demand for eel,” he said.
The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation said that in 2016, China produced close to a quarter of a million tonnes of eel for consumption, far ahead of Japan – where eating eel is seen as bringing good luck and fertility – and the EU.
The bloc’s law enforcement agency Europol estimates as many as 100 tonnes of baby eels – known as glass eels for their translucent skin – are trafficked abroad each year: equivalent to around 350 million fish.
“Glass eels trafficking involves environmental crime, smuggling, document fraud, tax evasion and money laundering,” a spokesman said.
The live eels are largely caught – legally or otherwise – in Western Europe before being smuggled eastwards in vans or lorries, often falsely labelled as non-endangered fish, police and conservationists say.
Criminal gangs then divide the eels into suitcases, up to 50,000 of the tiny fish per bag, which are then flown by commercial airliner to Asia.
The fish are grown in special farms to their full size – up to a metre and a half – and then
sold to market for the equivalent of 10 (RM46.50) each.
“Prices vary so you can only come up with bracket figures, but we’re talking billions (of euros). It’s the biggest wildlife crime by value on Earth,” said Kerr.
“It’s the most trafficked and travelled animal on the planet.” — AFP