Inside the illegal eel trade: is there a way to stop Europe's biggest wildlife crime before it's too late?

"By 10am on the midsummer Day of the Ox, the city of Narita smells of charcoal and sugar. The cobbled road is thronged with visitors lining up to buy grilled eel, a traditional delicacy believed to cool the body and keep spirits up in the humid weather. We'll be so sad if it becomes extinct and we can't eat eel any more, says a customer sitting on the tatami-mat floor in Kawatoyo, a popular restaurant specialising in grilled eel, which has been operating for more than 115 years."

"His fear is well founded. Of the 286,000 tonnes of eel eaten globally, 99% are American, Japanese and European eels, according to a recent study by Chuo University. They are listed as endangered and critically endangered, in the case of European eels by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Their numbers have plummeted due to habitat loss, pollution and the climate crisis but also due to a thriving illegal trade in European eels. Worth about 2.5bn (2.1bn) a year, eel trafficking is Europe's biggest wildlife crime. If there is a demand, there will be trafficking, says Jose Antonio Alfaro Moreno, lead of Europol's anti-eel trafficking operation."

"Despite a ban on eel exports from Europe 15 years ago, the fish are still ending up on plates around the globe but in particular in Asia. More than half of seizures of European eel between 2011 and 2018 were destined for China, a country that accounts for 70% of the world's total eel exports."

Narita's midsummer Day of the Ox tradition draws crowds to eat kabayaki-style grilled eel as a seasonal delicacy believed to cool the body. Global eel consumption totals about 286,000 tonnes, dominated by American, Japanese and European species. Those species are listed as endangered and critically endangered by the IUCN, with populations collapsing from habitat loss, pollution, climate change and intensive illegal trade. European eel trafficking is worth roughly €2.5bn a year and constitutes Europe's largest wildlife crime. A ban on European eel exports has failed to stop illegal shipments, with many seizures showing China as a major destination and Japan heavily reliant on imports.

Read at www.theguardian.com