- Declining eels population, water quality
- McCourt’s eel fishing in crisis
- Livelihoods at risk, urgent action
Gerard McCourt hinges significantly on his eel haul for the current season. He ought to be anticipating the casting of his very first lines in 2024. Despite this, McCourt, who is 42 years old, presents a troubled countenance as intermittent golden sunlight illuminates the ominous, cloudy skyline situated behind him.
“This year will tell a story,” he declares with a voice tinged with desperation and agitation. He speaks with the exhaustion of a man. He declares that this season will “make or break” for himself and dozens of other fishermen while positioned at a jetty along the northern shore of a vast lough (“lake” in Gaelic or Gaeilge, the Irish language) and adorned in a diesel-flecked grey hoodie.
McCourt’s family has fished for eels in Lough Neagh, one of the largest freshwater lakes in northwestern Europe, for the past six generations. The 400-square-kilometre (154-square-mile) lough has historically inspired Irish philosophers, artists, and storytellers, as well as fishermen who have laboured in these waters for centuries. It is a source of immense pride.
Heritage and Crisis in Eel Fishing
McCourt obtained his fishing licence from his father, similar to the approximately ninety other fishermen active at Lough Neagh. The vessel he employs to navigate the waters at the southwestern extremity of the loch is also ancestral: “Wee Henry” was constructed by his father and bears his name. While the burnished black fibreglass vessel is approximately 8 metres (27 feet) in length, it is in stark contrast to the wooden rowing canoes that were once utilised by lough fishermen decades ago when eels and other fish were more abundant.
This no longer holds true. Due to a combination of declining eel populations and an algal infestation that ravaged the body of water last summer and autumn, fishermen such as McCourt “effectively had to write off” an entire season, according to him.
However, this precipitous decline in eel populations and degradation of water quality did not occur overnight. Annual recruitment of juvenile eels (elvers) in Lough Neagh experienced a precipitous decline in 1983, falling from 8 million to 726,000, or less than 10 percent of what it had been the previous year.
Decline of Eel Populations in Europe
Furthermore, for years, a significant number of Northern Ireland’s waterways, which supply the lough system, have been deteriorating in quality. No transitional or coastal water, river, lake, or transitional body in the territory was “good” in 2021, according to European water quality rules.
Even prior to the algal growths observed in April 2023, an annual fishing industry report disclosed that the quantity of elvers “naturally recruited” to the lough system had decreased by around half compared to the previous year. It is worth noting that this decline did not stem from the increasing practice of airlifting in eels from the Severn Estuary in England, which has become more prevalent in recent years.
This precipitous decline in the eel population has spread throughout the remainder of Europe. While the primary causes remain elusive, numerous indicators point to climate change.
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Principal scientific officer of the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute in Northern Ireland (AFBINI), Adam Mellor, tells that the identification of the cause of the species extinction has been rendered exceedingly challenging due to the multitude of complex variables and factors at play.
Indeed, he asserts, it is exceedingly difficult to cover enormous gaps in external knowledge, notwithstanding the “really large body of knowledge” accumulated by scientists and the fishery themselves. “A great deal of assumption remains,” he further asserts.
Furthermore, despite recent scientific advancements, the reproductive cycles of the eels, which encompass lunar phases and migration to the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, remain incompletely comprehended.
Ecological Grief and Fishing Livelihoods Threatened
Recent scientific evidence supports McCourt’s description of “ecological grief” experienced by fishermen who have long witnessed fish and wildlife numbers decline. He claims that mounting apprehensions regarding the sustainability of commercial fishing at Lough Neagh in the face of ongoing income loss exacerbate the situation.
McCourt claims that he spent a mere three weeks in the water in 2023, whereas the season typically lasts from early May until “around Halloween” or the end of October. “I would be forced to give up if I could not secure a good catch in May,” he declares. “We were unable to endure another financial beating comparable to the one we endured last year.”
McCourt adds that a further decline in the eel population at Lough Neagh could effectively put an end to commercial fishing at the body of water due to the premium they command for sale in comparison to other species.
Consumers in the Netherlands and London import the vast majority of the eels captured in Lough Neagh. Although alternative species of fish have managed to endure the deteriorating water quality conditions at the lough and its tributaries better, their value is not adequate to support industrial operations. Furthermore, certain “scale fish” species, such as the pollan (also known as freshwater herring), are classified as vulnerable and are subject to stringent protection measures.
“Scale fish are more resilient,” explains McCourt. “It appears that they fare better in murky water.” However, the same could be said for scale fishing as well.”
This is the case in part because eel fishing is considerably more profitable. McCourt states,
We would not receive the same income for a similar quantity of scale fish as we would for eels.” Consequently, it is essentially eels or nothing for us.
McCourt asserts that he will be unable to endure another season similar to the previous one, during which he was compelled to remain idle and helpless as he observed the decline of his livelihood and the environment that sustains it.
