The leisure fishermen of the Union Rhône-Méditerranée-Corse (UFBRMC) have just published a resolution at their last general meeting on 13 June 2024.
To do so in a simple and concise manner, they are protesting against the decree of 14 March 2024 on fishing seasons for European eels in the Mediterranean in marine and continental waters, which bans recreational fishing and severely restricts professional fishing for this species, the main reason being that this provision introduces “inequality of treatment between professional and recreational fishermen and can only prove ineffective in terms of the species’ conservation objectives”.

This difference in treatment, which we do not regard as unfair but as a logical consequence of the different social status of recreational and professional fishermen, is justified quite simply by the fact that a professional fisherman fishes to support his family and a recreational fisherman fishes for pleasure.
Furthermore, to describe recreational anglers looking for this species as “sentinels of the rivers and defenders of this species” is pushing the float ball a little too far, given that the management authorities in the Mediterranean have very little information on eel catches made by recreational anglers, which is not the case for professional fishers in all the areas they fish.

This lack of information is so glaring that in the draft French report, the management authorities are forced to rely on approximations dating from 2015. In this draft report, the estimate of recreational catches for the Rhône-Méditerranée-Corse (RMC) basin is unknown, and for France as a whole the following is mentioned: “In the absence of compulsory reporting, in order to obtain information on catches in certain catchment areas, surveys or voluntary reporting systems have been set up by FDAAPPMAs (associations of anglers) or “migratory associations”. To date, the implementation of these surveys are subjected to methodological difficulties, and catches by recreational anglers remain unquantified due to a lack of systematic reporting”.

According to estimates from 2015 which, for the lack of anything better, are still current, the total weight of eel caught by recreational anglers on private land in the RMC basin is 83 tonnes (Table 30 on page 80). This is by no means negligible for fishermen who do not trade in eels but simply enjoy them as a past-time, and when we compare this quantity with those caught by professional freshwater fishermen (29 tonnes) and even in the maritime sector (390 tonnes).
Furthermore, taking Ifremer as the reference source for an advice on the state of this stock when, unfortunately, the Institute has abandoned all expertise on this species since 2010 is a little bit misplaced. Neither of the two expert bodies commissioned by the European Union – ICES (International Council for the Exploration of the Sea) and GFCM (General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean) – is capable of assessing this stock, even though everyone (and professional fishermen first and foremost) admits that the density of eels has fallen sharply. From there to say that “the quantity of spawners is insufficient to rebuild these populations” is a hasty and unfounded extrapolation that Ifremer, nor any other scientific body, is in a position to put forward.

As a reminder, ICES admitted in its February 2021 report that it did not have the means or the elements to assess such a stock, especially to define catch volumes quantitatively, and that it considered that, as part of its “precautionary approach”, it would be reasonable, as a precautionary measure, not to exploit such a population.
In its report of 2023, the GFCM repeated the ICES advice on fishing without further argument, but went further in its analysis by considering that the habitat of this species was in a critical state in the Mediterranean basin (36% of the 862,695 hectares inventoried could be naturally colonised by this species) and that it was urgent to restore these ecosystems and reduce mortality not linked to fishing activity.

It should also be noted that, in terms of numbers, professional fishing has not been spared, with a 35% drop in the maritime sector (from 297 in 2009 to 194 in 2023), as well as professional fishing on rivers, where numbers have been drastically reduced to 4 fishermen at present.
Since the leaders of the recreational fishing sector refer to expert bodies to back up their claims, they should take into account all the information provided, in particular by the CGPM in its second report of 2024:

• 25% of the surface area of lagoons in the Mediterranean basin can be colonised naturally, allowing silver eels to escape without human intervention;
• Less than a third of the wetted surface of rivers can be used by eels;
• Lakes are poorly connected to the hydrological network and cannot be used naturally by eels.

It would appear that, in the context of the restoration of this species, and indeed in the more general context of the restoration and management of populations of highly migratory species, recreational fishing is going down the wrong road by targeting the wrong target and not expressly asking, as professional fishing does, that ecological continuity should at least be respected by those who disrupt it.
In accordance with the “Polluter Pays” principle, one of the three main principles of the Charter on the Environment, it is unacceptable that energy producers should not be the ones to pay for most of this restoration, when the direct and indirect effects on the increase in eel mortality have been amply demonstrated (see in particular the national reports submitted to the ICES eel working group).

As for the draft PLAGEPOMI RMC 2022-2027, it was not signed by professional fishermen on the grounds that it did not provide for sufficient and effective action to improve ecological continuity and continued, as recreational fishermen do, to treat professional fishing as an adjustment variable to the inability of the management administration to take significant action against those who regard the Rhône as a mere water supply pipe.
Unless its habitat is restored, particularly in the Mediterranean basin, the future of the species will be that of a secondary species, whether or not it is fished.