A glass eel. Jack Perks / Thames Catchment Community Eels Project
Endangered eels are a top target for wildlife traffickers in Europe and are generating billions in profits for smugglers globally, according to two new reports.
European eels are prized as a delicacy, from London to Tokyo, but no one has yet learned how to breed them. So smugglers are ferrying young eels from the continent to fish farms in China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, where they are raised to maturity and sold to high-end restaurants. These tiny, translucent juveniles, known as glass eels, are generating upwards of $3 billion in profits for smugglers in peak years, according to a new report from Europol, the law enforcement arm of the E.U.
In 2023, E.U. authorities intercepted more than 1 million live eels, according to a separate report from the watchdog group TRAFFIC. Seizures of critically endangered European eels outnumbered seizures of any other plant or animal.
Since the 1970s, the number of European eels has fallen by more than 90 percent. “Persistent demand and significant profits make it attractive to organized criminal groups,” Mònica Pons-Hernández, a criminologist at the University of Bergen in Norway, told Mongabay. “They’re highly motivated to adapt — finding new routes and ways to smuggle eels out of the E.U. despite increased enforcement.”
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