ESTONIA
Triton PR AS A recirculation system built from scratch
Eel farmer experiments with new species Eel has long been considered a delicacy across broad swathes of Europe from the White Sea in the Russian north west to the Black Sea. However, the European eel Anguilla anguilla is today an endangered species placed on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
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ot much is known about the life cycle of the eel, but it is widely accepted that it breeds in the Sargasso Sea off the coast of Florida, USA in the Atlantic Ocean. This is the only known breeding ground of the eel. The larvae are then carried by currents for about 300 days to the European coast becoming the juvenile stage known as glass eels due to the transparent nature of their bodies. Upon reaching freshwater they become elvers and then grow into yellow eels. After a period that can vary from 5-15 years they change to silver eels and begin their migration back to the Sargasso Sea to breed, and from which they do not return.
European eel populations in decline The decline in natural eel populations over the last decades prompted a European recovery plan for eel that was put in place in 2007. This requires that a substantial proportion of the glass eel catch (60 in 2013) be set aside for restocking programmes. Member States also had to produce Eel Management Plans that committed them to enabling sexually mature (silver) eels to escape to the sea. In Estonia the Eel Management Plan divided the country’s water bodies into two management areas based on the 38
Eurofish Magazine 5 / 2013
origin of the eel stock. The Narva River Basin District, where the eel population stems from restocking activities; and the West Estonian Basin District comprising coastal waters and West-Estonian inland water bodies, where the eel population is naturally occurring. In the Narva River Basin the restocking activities have increased the proportion of eels migrating to the sea, while in the West Estonian Basin District restrictions were placed on the fishery with small fyke nets. As a result in both management areas the target proportion of escapes to the sea has been achieved. The eel restocking activities in Estonia is partly dependent on the activity of the local eel farmers, who provide the elvers for restocking. Eels do not reproduce in captivity so eel farming has depended on the capture and growing of glass eels. These are fished in the UK, France, Spain, and Portugal, and are sold to eel farmers across Europe as well as increasingly to countries in Asia. The market for glass eels fluctuates significantly though prices have generally been going up. Raivo Puurits, the owner of Triton PR AS, an eel farming company, purchases glass eels each year in spring from a supplier in the UK for fattening in tanks. Mr Puurits says the availability and price of the glass eels is
unpredictable; most years he buys about 200 kg of glass eels, but last year he could only get 80 kg. The eels are grown for processors on the Dutch market and are delivered live. Production at Triton is expected to be 60 tonnes this year out of a capacity of 100 tonnes. Farming eel is a tough business, says Mr Puurits, the uncertainty regarding the glass eels is one aspect, but the price for the final product can also suddenly slump. One year, a campaign by environmental organisations pushed the price to the floor, yet at the same time the price for glass eels had gone through the ceiling. The economic crisis also affected the market, as loans and credits from banks dried up almost overnight.
Diversifying into other species Today things are a bit better. While banks are not offering finance the way they did in the boom period before the crisis, it is easier to get funding than it was a couple of years ago, says Raivo Puurits. The price for the market-sized fish has also increased from EUR5.5 per kg three years ago to EUR7.5 today, though ideally the price should be EUR8.5 to cover all costs and leave a margin. But in the long run Mr Puurits reckons it is necessary to diversify his product portfolio. Apart from the fluctuations in prices eel is such a sensitive fish that growing it is a question of constant close monitoring and feeding it with expensive extruded feeds.
Producing eel is a tough business and Mr Puurits is experimenting with other, more resilient species. www.eurofishmagazine.com