Authorities to monitor eels in Foyle again

The North Western River Basin District Eel Management Plan (EMP) concludes that there was no information available on the current level of glass eel or elver and brown eel recruitment in the Foyle, Roe and Faughan regions.

It also says there was little or no information on the level of silver eel stock in the Londonderry area although a private fishery on the Foyle once yielded several tonnes each year from fixed wing nets.

The report recommended the new elver collection index sites on the River Foyle to monitor eel numbers. Studies have been conducted in the past.

The Foyle Fisheries Commission conducted a number of surveys in the late 1990s to capture glass eels.

“No significant numbers were caught so it was discontinued,” the report said. “However, the Faughan did have an experimental trap in the mid-1980s that yielded approximately 1.5 kg per year.”

A number of brown eel surveys were also undertaken on some lakes within the Foyle area from the late 1960s up to the late 1990s.

“In the 1999 survey the average weight in these lakes was 0.28kg and eels ranged in length from 32-64cm with an average age of 15.7 years,” the report said.

“A survey in 1971 found the mean weight was 0.2kg and mean length 48cm. A previous survey in 1969 also recorded low numbers of eels,” it added.

All of these brown eel surveys commented on the low numbers caught and that “the commercial viability of exploiting the stock was marginal at best.”

Exploratory surveys of the Foyle undertaken by the Foyle Fisheries Commission (FFC) from 1967 to 1969 were discontinued due to low catches.