Abstract
The European eel (Anguilla Anguilla) was a very valuable species for the economy of small scale fisheries in France both in marine and in inland waters. At the beginning of the 21st century the species was the third economical value of all the species caught in the Bay of Biscay despite a strong reduction in abundance since the middle of the 20th century and especially since the seventies. Right now, there is a sharp decline of the economic value of that fishery due to some constraining fishing regulations and due to the export ban of eel outside Europe. Due to a dramatic decrease of its abundance in all the European waters, the EU decided to implement an eel management plan in 2007 , in a council regulation establishing measures for the recovery of the stock of the European eel. Each member states producing eels had to identify regulation measures and eel habitat and had to evaluate the effectiveness of these measures. They represented the basis of the national management plans defined by each member states that wish to exploit the eel resource. The objective of the eel national management plan is to reduce anthropogenic mortalities so as to permit with high probability the escapement to the sea of at least 40% of the silver eel biomass relative to the best estimate of escapement that would have existed if no anthropogenic influences had impacted the stock. In that context, some large scientific programs such as INDICANG and EELIAD have been undertaken to improve our present knowledge on the migratory behaviour of eel at different phases of its biological cycle, to develop some methodologies to evaluate the abundance of the stock in a given river system and to assess the relative effects of both fisheries and others anthropogenic factors on the future of the stock. A large part of these studies were undertaken through a close cooperation between scientists and fishers in order to add their know-how and knowledge to develop some technical approaches on the field. Some examples are given to illustrate these field experiments.
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- 1.
773 euros per kg for the mean annual price for the fishing season 2004/2005.
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2137 millions yens.
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EC regulation 1100/2007 of 18 September 2007.
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Defined according to historical data or by habitat-based assessment of potential eel production in the absence of anthropogenic effects or with reference to the ecology and hydrography of similar river systems.
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Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
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Saisines 2014-SA-0122 et 2011-SA-039.
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810 fishing enterprises in 2015 (CNPMEM/CONAPPED data).
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In the northern part of the colonization area, the growth rate is lower and the mean age of eel is higher than in the Southern part.
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From Mauritania to Norway.
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A new project coordinated by E. Amilhat and E. Falliex in 2013 have been implemented to collect information on the reproductive migration on eel from the Mediterranean Sea with the financial support of the MEDDE and the technical assistance of Mediterranean professional fishers.
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The influence of the climate change on the transoceanic migration of the leptocephali suggested by the «eel tree» was outside the scope of the Indicang program.
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In some river system such as the Gironde estuary, the high turbidity of water allows to catch the fish in surface even during the daytime.
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See web site www.ifremer.fr/indicang/.
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This model explain 90% of the total variance. The exponent of catches is defined with a linear relationship between log(Explrate) and log(catches).
- 18.
Irrespective of the values of the rate of flow and tide coefficient, the turbidity is always strong and the glass-eels migrate always near the surface of water on the Loire estuary. But, we know as on the Adour estuary that floods associated with low or medium tide coefficients prevent the glass-eels to migrate and concentrate the fishes on the river banks allowing to make very good catches.
- 19.
Or the (7.2) for the Adour River
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Much lower than the 35 km per day required to reach the Sargasso Sea for spawning in April.
- 22.
- 23.
Contribution of French Professional Fishermen to Eel Restocking: Good practice guide for the glass-eel fishing and implementation of a community-wide restocking program. Document CNPMEM/ARA France/CONAPPED with the support of the WWF—France, 19 pages.
- 24.
See the FAO code of conduct for responsible fishing (1995).
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Prouzet, P., Amilhat, E., Boisneau, C., Boisneau, P., Feunteun, E., Michelet, N. (2019). The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) in France: An Example of Close Cooperation Among Researchers and Fishers to Study and Manage an Endangered Species. In: Komatsu, T., Ceccaldi, HJ., Yoshida, J., Prouzet, P., Henocque, Y. (eds) Oceanography Challenges to Future Earth. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00138-4_7
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