Inland fishermen in The Netherlands have released half a million young eels in recent weeks. The large-scale release, under the umbrella of the DUPAN Foundation and on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality, took place in four provinces.
Most of the young eels – 271,416 – were released in the Zwarte Meer by father and son Frans Komen (UK 7). In the Frisian basin, all 12 Frisian professional inland fishermen released 123,980 young eels. In the Amstelmeer, Rinke Blok and Jaap Buitenhuis were involved in the release of 67,016 young eels and in the Kromme Mijdrecht, Freerk Visserman (Heeg) helped his colleague Martin van Wettum with the counting and release of 10,052 glass eels.
Last Saturday, about 12,500 eels were released in Grafhorst and Genemuiden. Earlier this year, 2.5 mn glass eels were released.
Research organization Ravon has mapped out more than 70,000 bottlenecks for eel migration in the Netherlands in the past two years. On Thursday, 24 June, the Ravon Foundation, the Good Fish Foundation and the World Fish Migration Foundation will award the Power to the Eel Prize to the water manager with the best score for opening up the habitat for eels and for solving bottlenecks.
This news item is translated from Dutch language to english by Cornelie Quist