Assessment of the eel stock in Sweden, spring 2024 : fifth post-evaluation of the Swedish eel management
Authors: van Gemert Rob , Holliland Per , Karlsson Konrad , Sjöberg Niklas , Säterberg Torbjörn 
Published: July 2024

For decades, the population of the European eel has been in severe decline. In 2007, the European Union decided on a Regulation establishing measures for the recovery of the stock, which obliged Member States to implement a national Eel Management Plan by 2009. Sweden submitted its plan in 2008. According to the Regulation, Member States shall report regularly to the EU-Commission, on the implementation of their Eel Management Plans and the progress achieved in protection and restoration. The current report provides an assessment of the eel stock in Sweden as of spring 2024, intending to feed into the national reporting to the EU in August this year. This report updates and extends previous evaluation reports by Dekker (2012, 2015) and Dekker et al. (2018, 2021). In this report, the impacts on the stock - of fishing, restocking and mortality related to hydropower generation - are assessed. Other anthropogenic impacts (climate change, pollution, increased impacts of predators, spread of parasites, disruption of migration due to disorientation after transport, and so forth) probably have an impact on the stock too, but these factors are hardly quantifiable, and no management targets have been set. For that reason, and because most factors were not included in the EU Eel Regulation, these other factors are not included in this report. Our focus is on the quantification of silver eel biomass escaping from continental waters towards the ocean (current, current potential and pristine) and mortality risks endured by those eels during their whole lifetime. The assessment is broken down on a geographical basis, with different impacts dominating in different areas (west coast, inland waters, Baltic coast). In the last decade, a break in the downward trend in glass eel recruitment has been observed, with recruitment no longer declining consistently. Whether that relates to recent protective actions, or is due to other factors, is yet unclear. Nevertheless, recruitment levels remain at historically low levels. This report contributes to the required international assessment, but does not discuss the causing factors behind the recent recruitment trend and the overall status of the stock across Europe. For the different assessment areas, results summarise as follows: On the west coast, a commercial fyke net fishery on yellow eel was exploiting the stock, until this fishery was completely closed in spring 2012. A fishery-based assessment no longer being achievable, we present trends from research surveys (fyke nets). Insufficient information is currently available to assess the recovery of the stock in absolute terms. Obviously, current fishing mortality is zero (disregarding the currently unquantifiable effect of illegal fishing), but none of the other requested stock indicators (current, current potential and pristine biomass) can be presented. The formerly exploited size-classes of the stock show a recovery in abundance after the closure of the commercial fishery, and the smaller size classes show a break in their decline in line with the recent global trend of glass eel recruitment. In order to support the recovery of the stock, or to compensate for anthropogenic mortality in inland waters, young eel has been restocked on the Swedish west coast since 2010. Noting the quantity of restocking involved, the expected effect (ca. 50 t silver eel) is relatively small, and hard to verify – in comparison to the potential natural stock on the west coast (an order of 1000 t). However, for the currently depleted stock, the contribution will likely constitute a larger share of silver eel escapement. For inland waters, this report updates the 2021 assessment, with substantial changes in methodology being the use of a new natural recruitment model, and the full separation of Trap & Transport catches from the fisheries statistics. The assessment for the inland waters relies on a reconstruction of the stock from information on the youngest eels in our waters (natural recruits, assisted migration, restocking). Based on 78 years of data on natural recruitment into 22 rivers, a statistical model is applied which relates the number of immigrating young eel caught in traps to the location and size of each river, the distance from the trap to the river mouth, and the year in which those eels recruited to continental waters as a glass eel (year class). The further into the Baltic, the larger and less numerous recruits generally are. Distance upstream comes with less numerous recruits. Using the results from the above recruitment analysis, in combination with historical data on assisted migration (young eels transported upstream within a drainage area, across barriers) and restocking (young eels imported into a river system), we have a complete overview of how many young eels recruited to Swedish inland waters. From this, the production of fully grown silver eel is estimated for every lake and year separately, based on best estimates of growth and natural mortality rates. Subtracting the catch made by the fishery (as recorded) and down-sizing for the mortality incurred when passing hydropower stations (percentwise, as recorded or using a default percentage), an estimate of the biomass of silver eel escaping from each river towards the sea is derived. Results indicate, that since 1960, the production of silver eel in inland waters has declined from over 700 to below 300 tonnes per year (t/yr). The production of naturally recruited eels is still falling; following the increase in restocking since 2010, an increase in restocking-based production is expected to be starting right around now. Gradually, restocking has replaced natural recruitment (assisted and fully natural), now making up over 90 % of the inland stock. Fisheries have taken 20-30 % of the silver eel (since the mid-1980s), while the impact of hydropower has ranged from 25 % to 60 %, depending on the year. Escapement is estimated to have varied from 72 t in the late 1990s, to 175 t in the early 2000s. The biomass of current escapement (including eels of restocked origin) is approximately 15 % of the pristine level (incl. restocked), or almost 30 % of the current potential biomass (incl. restocked). This is below the 40 % biomass limit of the Eel Regulation, and anthropogenic mortality (70 % over the entire life span in continental waters) exceeds the limit implied in the Eel Regulation (60 % mortality, the complement of 40 % survival). Mortality being that high, Swedish inland waters currently do not contribute to the recovery of the stock. The temporal variation (in production, impacts and escapement) is partly the consequence of a differential spatial distribution of the restocking of eel over the years. The original natural (not assisted) recruits were far less impacted by hydropower, since they could not climb the hydropower dams when immigrating. Since 2010, inland restocking is increasingly concentrated to drainage areas falling to the Kattegat-Skagerrak, also including obstructed lakes (primarily Lake Vänern, and many smaller ones). Even though Trap & Transport of silver eel - from above barriers towards the sea - has contributed to reducing the hydropower impact, hydropower mortality remains the largest estimated contributor to silver eel mortality in inland waters. Without restocking, the biomass affected by fishery and/or hydropower would be only 5-10 % of the currently impacted biomass, but the stock abundance would reduce from 15 % to less than 3 % of the pristine biomass. In summary: the inland eel stock biomass is below the minimum target, anthropogenic impacts exceed the minimum limit that would allow recovery, and those impacts have been increasing. It is therefore recommended to reconsider the current action plans on inland waters, taking into account the results of the current, comprehensive assessment. For the Baltic coast, the 2021 assessment has been updated without major changes in methodology. Results indicate that the impact of the fishery continues to decline over the decades. The current impact of the Swedish silver eel fishery on the escapement of silver eel along the Baltic Sea coast is estimated at 0.3 %. However, this fishery is just one of the anthropogenic impacts (in other areas/countries) affecting the eel stock in the Baltic, including all types of impacts, on all life stages and all habitats anywhere in the Baltic. Integration with the assessments in other countries has not been achieved. Current estimates of the abundance of silver eel (biomass) indicates an order of several thousand tonnes, but those estimates are extremely uncertain, due to the low impact of the fishery (near-zero statistics). Moreover, these do not take into account the origin of those silver eels, from other countries. An integrated assessment for the whole Baltic will be required to ground-truth these estimates. This would also bring the eel assessments in line with the policy to regionalise stock assessments for other (commercial) fish species (see https://ec.europa.eu/oceans-and-fisheries/fisheries/rules/multiannual-plans_en). It is recommended to develop an integrated assessment for the entire Baltic Sea eel stock, and to coordinate protective measures with other range states.