Eel experts say they are shocked to find no evidence of the animal in the network of drainage ditches that make up its traditional habitats in the Somerset Levels, which once teemed with the critically endangered fish.
DNA sampling by the Sustainable Eel Group and Somerset Eel Recovery Project in the drainage ditches found no traces of eel DNA.
The Levels are a unique flat landscape that extend throughout the north and centre of Somerset, comprising 69,000 hectares (170,000 acres) of wetland and coastal plain land. While once the area was marshland wilderness, it has been drained and farmed by humans since ancient times – drainage of the Levels has been detected before the Domesday Book was written.
It was also once a hotspot for eels, and anglers fishing for bream and roach gave small eels the nickname “bootlaces” as they tangled around their lines, knotting them. They were even once used as currency in Somerset; in the 12th century, tenants of Glastonbury Abbey were expected to pay the monks 14,000 eels a year in rent.
Experts believe barriers in the wetlands, built to keep water back from farmland and homes, are the reason there are no eels in the drains of the Levels.
Using the DNA sampling company NatureMetrics, the eel campaigners took water samples that were filtered and tested for fragments of eel DNA.
Andrew Kerr, chair of the Sustainable Eel Group, said: “We were very, very surprised to see no evidence of European eel. Off the River Axe, there is an incredible network of drains built by man to drain the Somerset Levels. And we thought we would find eels throughout the whole area.
“Something like 100 million eels a year come up the Bristol Channel, going into the Parrett and the Somerset Levels and then on up the Severn, all the way up to Wales. And just as there are 1.3m barriers to fish migration in the rivers of Europe, the Somerset Levels are full of barriers, but we thought all these drains that surround the area of Wedmore, one of the great Somerset Levels, would be full of eels.”
While they found eels in varying quantities in the rivers feeding the Levels, there were none in the complex drainage systems of the wetland areas.
“In the drainage ditches, we found no eel DNA. The river simply isn’t feeding the eels into the Levels, because they cannot cross the barriers,” said Kerr.
He also blamed an electric pumping station for killing the eels: “The drainage system is separate from the river system and is separated by barriers and walls and a great big pumping station.
“That electric pumping station has been there for 50 years. But obviously there were eels behind those walls before it went in, and eels have a lifecycle of 10 to 20 years, it takes some time for the pumps to kill them all. And that’s obviously what happened. We were very shocked to find no eel in that latticework of drains, it is ideal habitat.”
Kerr is not calling for all the barriers to be removed and the farmland flooded, but for the water network to be made more eel-friendly with solutions to the barriers. “Nobody would expect you to turn it into a wilderness because you’d lose all that productive farmland. But what we have to do is find solutions to the blocked migration pathways.”
Ali Morse, water policy manager for The Wildlife Trusts, told the Guardian: “The Somerset Levels have been a stronghold for eels for thousands of years, but illegal fishing and the loss of wetland habitat have contributed to catastrophic declines. It is estimated that populations have decreased by as much as 90% since the 1980s. Somerset Wildlife Trust and partners are working hard to give eels a future in the Levels, including through release programmes and targeted reedbed management. It is critical we create and restore wetlands to give eels and other wildlife that depend on this vital habitat a future.”
Next week, the Sustainable Eel group will work with local people from Somerset to weave traditional ropes, which can be slung over the barriers. The idea is for the eels to slither up the ropes, over the barriers, and migrate.
Kerr said: “We are building a great deal of local interest in eel. And that’s what’s triggering all this because the locals want their eels back. We’ve managed to connect them to their history and their tradition. And they’ve obviously are aware of it and frustrated that so little has been done, given the scale of the problem.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “While our latest data shows eel populations have been recorded in sections of the Somerset Levels, there has been a decline in European eel distribution and abundance around Europe and north Africa over the last 30 years, including in the UK.
“This is why we are taking forward a range of measures to protect and support eel populations, including removing barriers to upstream migration by improving eel pass design in our rivers and carrying out research on all life stages of the European eel to inform conservation measures.”
Natural England has also been contacted for comment.
• This article was amended on 23 August 2023 to clarify that the testing took place in the drainage ditches of the Somerset Levels.
