Elvers in crisis

You may well have heard of the elver-eating competitions in and around Frampton in Gloucestershire, but sadly those celebrations have long since died away, as the tiny elvers, or glass eels (so called because they are almost translucent), have become an increasingly rare commodity. The life story of the eel is a mysterious one, and completely opposite to that of the salmon. The eel begins its life as larvae in the Sargasso Sea — a lens of warmer water on the surface of the Atlantic off the American coast — and then makes a long (up to 3 years’) journey piggy-backing on the Gulf Stream to our rivers.