The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) and its offspring, the eel, will continue to be fished. The autonomies include the species in the Spanish Catalog of Endangered Species, in the category of endangered, in the Flora and Fauna Committee – made up of the Government and the communities -, held this Tuesday. Galicia, Asturias, Cantabria, Murcia, the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands, where the species is exploited, have expressed their opposition to this declaration, which would have led to its strict protection and the prohibition of its capture.
Other communities such as Catalonia (where most elvers were caught last season), this season due to the poor state of the population) and Andalusia (where it has been banned since 2010), as well as Navarra, La Rioja, Extremadura, Aragón, Castilla y León, Madrid and Castilla-La Mancha, have abstained. Furthermore, they have conditioned their future decision on the debate that takes place in a working group that has been agreed to create at the meeting.
This group will aim to analyze in depth the causes of population decline, evaluate the results of the implementation of existing management plans that will have to be shared by regional and state administrations, and evaluate possible additional conservation measures.
With this result, the Ministry for the Ecological Transition considers . Despite this, the third vice president and minister for the Ecological Transition and the Demographic Challenge, Sara Aagesen, has declared that they will continue trying “as many times as possible, anchoring ourselves in rigor and scientific knowledge.”
The arrival of elvers – the eel fry – to the Iberian Peninsula has plummeted by 90% compared to the levels of the sixties and seventies of the last century. These hatchlings travel up the rivers and, after several years of growth, transform into adult eels that undertake the return journey to reproduce in the Sargasso Sea. Fingerling fishing is very profitable: last season it reached an average price of 430 euros per kilo.
The ministry had already tried to protect the elver to stop its decline in 2020 and 2024. But the veto of the autonomous communities prevented, as on this occasion, from moving forward. The protection proposal was supported by two favorable reports from the scientific committee that guarantee that the species meets the requirements to be considered threatened.
The autonomous communities maintain that the main problems are not found in overfishing because they have been reducing the days and hours of capture for years. Structural issues are what hinder the species, such as the multiple barriers that prevent rivers from rising, the destruction of habitats, pollution or the arrival of invasive species, such as the blue crab in Catalonia, which preys on the eel.
On this occasion, the ministry has undertaken a campaign prior to the meeting with the communities in which several renowned chefs from the country, grouped in the Euro-Toques organization, have been involved. Not only have they stopped serving this threatened species in their establishments, but they have joined the scientific request to ban its fishing completely in Spain.
The impression that nothing was going to change, which César Rodríguez, general secretary of the Ríos con Vida-AEMS Association—one of the organizations that promoted the petition to protect the eel—already had, has been confirmed. “It is not understood that the species does not want to be protected, given the critical numbers in which it is found. It is an objective truth that only 10% of the elvers arrive than before, and this is not fully assumed,” he comments.
Despite the reluctance to ban fishing, there are communities with an angler tradition that have chosen to do so and that recognize the sharp decline of the species. The Basque Country has suspended capture this campaign, supported by several reports.
One of them, the one that Spain sends to the European Commission, warns that both the escape objectives (the adult specimens that return to the sea) and the recruitment objectives (the hatchlings that arrive) “are still far” from being achieved. “The number of eels in our rivers is only 7% of those that lived in the sixties and seventies of the last century,” the Basque Government points out in a statement. In addition, it warns that the measures they have implemented have not managed to reverse “the critical situation of the eel”, so its population continues outside safe biological limits.
Every year, the ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) assesses the status of eel and other marine populations to advise the European Commission on fishing opportunities. In the case of eel, the between 40 and 60 scientists from 20 European countries that make up the group recommend zero captures. They also call for eliminating deaths caused by human activities other than fishing, as well as restoring habitats and river connectivity.
The group’s latest report, published in November 2025, indicates that the arrival of elvers remains at “extremely low” levels. In the North Sea area it barely reaches 1% of the levels of the sixties and seventies of the last century, and in the rest of Europe it is at 12%.
