St Andrews eel release

On Friday year 5 and 6 at St Andrews finally got to release their elvers into the wild at Blagdon Lake where we hope they will be spending the next 5 to 25 years maturing into fully grown adults.  Then at some point they will be following their instinct to take them back across the Atlantic Ocean, all the way to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.

The children not only released the elvers they had been looking after since the beginning of term but also another 2000 (!) ready to start the road to adult life in Blagdon Lake.

 On a beautiful sunny day the children walked across the dam at the bottom of Blagdon Lake and visited the eel pass on the Bristol Water fisheries site. Here the elvers make their way up a special brush system and end up in a bird proof tank. Every morning they are netted and released up into the lake.  Without the eel pass they would not be able to get past the water works that Bristol Water use at the fisheries and therefore would not be able to mature into adults in an ideal habitat such as Blagdon Lake.

The eel pass at Bristol Water fisheries is just one of many devices functioning throughout the UK in an attempt to help elvers and young eels overcome many of the flood defences and other obstacles they find during their journey upstream in rivers and streams.

After finding 2 elvers waiting in the eel pass tank for release the children took part in a nature trail which also taught about several native riverside mammals such as the otter and water vole.

Finally it was back across to the lake to try some smoked eel.  Part of the conservation effort with this species is to make it also commercially viable in the UK and throughout Europe.

All in all, a lovely day was had by all and we would like to thank St Andrews for doing such a brilliant job in helping us to conserve eels in Somerset!