Nick Longman, chairman Golden Valley Fish and wildlife Assoc, Dorstone, says rivers’ eels are in peril

We are very concerned about the massive decline in the European eel (anguilla anguilla) numbers in our local rivers, particularly our own River Dore.

We are aware that the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is also concerned, recognising an estimated 90 per cent crash in eel numbers since the 1970s, and placing our Herefordshire eel on its “red list” of endangered species. Despite the massive drop in eel numbers, commercial fishing for elvers, or juvenile eels, is allowed to continue in a large scale every March, April and May on the lower Wye and Severn estuary, preventing the juveniles, which have made their way back from the area of their birth thought to be in the Sargasso Sea, from entering their natural home in our rivers and stillwaters.

A large proportion of these young eels are exported to Asia for huge sums of money for growing- on for the table in commercial eel farms.

We are aware that there are new requirements on European member states to introduce eel management plans, and that one applies to the UK.

However, since eels are known to be able to live for up to 50 years in freshwater prior to returning to sea to breed, we are worried that we have only begun to see the start of their population collapse and that any such eel plans that allow this commercial fishery to continue will fail.

We urge the environment secretary, Caroline Spelman MP, to act now to impose a precautionary total closure of the juvenile eel fishery to allow as many eels as possible to enter and grow in our rivers, and benefit our Herefordshire ecosystem, instead of being exported abroad.

We believe that it is now too late for minor changes such as reducing fishing seasons, and urge her to act decisively before the eel becomes effectively extinct from Herefordshire rivers.

NICK LONGMAN, Chairman, Golden Valley Fish and Wildlife Association. Dorstone, Herefordshire.