As every year, at the end of 2022, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) implored the Swedes to stop serving smoked eel at the table on Christmas Eve. This delicacy is particularly appreciated in the south of the kingdom, especially by the elders. The fish is sold along the roads and in some fishmongers. For NGOs, it’s a scandal: the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is a species classified as critically endangered.
However, a scandal at the highest level of the State has just shed light on a practice, poaching, which is still very widespread and whose consequences are disastrous for the eel, according to the Agency for the sea and the environment. ‘water. It involves the Prime Minister’s right-hand man, Peter Magnus Nilsson, a former columnist for the economic newspaper Dagens Industri.
In a Facebook post on January 18, Mr. Nilsson revealed that he had been caught in the act, in September 2021, when he had just caught fifteen eels. Questioned by representatives of the Water and Sea Agency, the ex-journalist affirmed, twice, that the traps did not belong to him, before confessing everything at the beginning of January, pushing the opposition to Parliament to demand his resignation.
Historically low level
Monday, January 23, the head of government, Ulf Kristersson, admitted that the actions of his collaborator were “idiots”but do not justify his departure: “People do stupid things sometimes”noted the Prime Minister, hoping to put an end to the outcry caused by the confessions of the former journalist, which is unanimous against him.
Especially since in his message, Mr Nilsson states that the Sea and Water Agency has been able to observe “comforting signs [indiquant que] eel stocks are increasing in Swedish waters ». However, this is not the case, assures Sofia Brockmark, fisheries regulation adviser at the agency: “Apart from being at an all-time low, we see no signs of improvement. » On the contrary: European eel stocks (Anguilla anguilla) have declined by 95% since the 1960s.
In northern Europe, the situation is even worse, says Henrik Svedäng, a marine biology researcher at Stockholm University: “The decline is 99%, if we compare the current recruitment of eels with the period from 1960 to 1979.” In Sweden, overfishing, but also hydroelectric power stations are singled out.
Introduction of fry
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