Eden Wild Goose Nature
Nature notes from the Focus Magazine June 2022

Eden Eel 

 
I don’t think about eels often and know little or nothing about them. So, when, on a recent walk next to the river, we narrowly avoided stepping on one lying on the footpath, it was quite a surprise. The first positive was that we saw it before the dog did. It lay there looking spent, and we were unsure whether it was alive. I stared at it for a few seconds and once vital signs were detected, went into full life saving mode, which in this case meant offering to hold the dog’s lead while Graeme heroically did the saving bit. Without a moment’s thought for his own safety, he gently lifted the fast-expiring creature, whereupon it decided it wasn’t keen on this sudden turn of events, upped the ante, and began thrashing around like a thing possessed. Not to be thwarted, Graeme carried it to the water and in a snakey squirm of its lithe body, it disappeared. Not so much as a farewell flick of its tail in thanks.
 
The only other time I’ve had a close view of an eel was when I watched one being eaten by a heron. I reckon the eel was a good eighteen inches to two foot long and quite wide. It expressed its opposition to the heron’s plan in no uncertain terms, wriggling and writhing with all its considerable muscular might. The heron struggled to keep a grip and after a lengthy tussle won the day, managing to swallow the eel whole, and I watched with ghastly fascination as it slowly, and with some effort, managed to pass it down its long gullet. I might have been imagining it, but the heron looked to me as if it might have regretted its greed, as presumably the eel continued to wriggle for some time after its final journey.
 
A third encounter happened many years ago when the toilet on our rented Norfolk Broads barge was blocked. I remember my dad sweating away in the base of the boat before announcing he’d found the problem- an eel stuck in the pipe. I don’t know if that was true, as father liked to embroider a tale, but it impressed me at the time.
 
Anyway, a couple of days after encountering the eel, we met Mike who looks after the river near us. He was surprised to hear the story as it turns out that sadly, eels have become extremely rare in recent years and are seldom seen. Probably, this one too was about to become a heron’s dinner but managed to escape. My somewhat flippant stories do little to tell the real story of these extraordinary creatures who spawn thousands of miles away in the Sargasso Sea and take up to three years to reach our rivers. Once mature, they return to the same area to breed and can live to a hundred years old. They are red listed now, indicating their declining numbers, and if you should catch one when fishing, you are legally bound to return it to the water as soon as possible.
 
So, all in all, the eel we almost trod on was lucky twice over, and it turns out that we played an extremely small part in helping to conserve yet another of the many species that are severely threatened.
Philippa Skinner