Environment Agency efforts to improve access to freshwater habitats for Norfolk eels have seen encouraging results for second year running.

Increased numbers of eels have been observed at a Norwich fish pass, as well as sightings further upstream on the River Tud, the first to be found in that location for nearly 40 years.

Jez Wood, a specialist at the Environment Agency, said: ‘Last month 2 small eels were found on a routine fish survey on the Tud, a tributary of the Wensum. Two doesn’t sound like many, but these are the only small eels we’ve found on this stretch for years, and only the fifth and sixth of this size found in the Wensum catchment since 1973.’

Whilst this does not herald the recovery of the species as a whole, it does show the positive benefit of eel passes at barriers to migration and the monitoring programme at the Environment Agency.

The global eel population has dropped dramatically over the past 40 years, with numbers down by as much as 95%. Whilst there are thought to be many reasons for this decline, barriers to upstream migration are one that we can do something about.

These barriers reduce access to freshwater habitat in which many eels prefer to live while they mature, before migrating back across the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea where they spawn and die.

In Norfolk barriers include tidal sluices, weirs and mills. Eel passes are helping the Environment Agency ensure the population can be restored and stabilised. Click here to see more.