Really good news as elver population grows

THIS year, the number of elvers swimming up UK rivers and waterways was 20 times the norm of recent decades. This is good news.

Already, 660,000 Severn elvers have been donated for re-stocking English rivers, and this figure will rise. UK rivers will be healthily stocked with eels for the next six to 10 years. Elvers need to be taken out of the Severn and relocated because flood barriers are so effective they would be unable to reach other streams and tributaries and would perish. Eel-depleted rivers in Sweden, Denmark, Holland, Germany, Latvia and Lithuania also receive elvers from the Severn.

Over the past few years, a general increase in elvers reaching Ireland has been recorded in index sites on the west and east coasts, along with witness accounts of elver migration on the Bandon, Boyne, Corrib, Erriff and Burrishoole Rivers.