A PROJECT which has restocked county rivers with eels is campaigning to stop the fish being exported.

The Herefordshire Eel Project, a collaborative effort between Golden Valley Fish and Wildlife Association, the Lugg and Arrow Fisheries Association, and supporting groups and sponsors, is a response to rapidly dwindling eel stocks affecting all Herefordshire rivers.

The project started in 2012 and since then they have saved a quarter of a million baby eels, or elvers, from export and consumption abroad, and returned them to Herefordshire waters.

However the project is not seeking to continually buy and restock eels otherwise destined for export. Its primary objective is to influence a closure on the lawful eel export trade.

Ian McCulloch, who leads the project focused originally on the Golden Valley, said: "The disappearance of eels from Herefordshire rivers coincides with the emergence of an unsustainable, lawful, licensed export trade which sees millions of our baby eels caught and exported every spring.

"Elver fishing is a traditional activity which became a highly lucrative and environmentally-damaging 'gold-rush' since the 1980s, fuelled by demand from Asia and elsewhere. "This restocking work is merely an emergency local “sticking-plaster” to a much bigger problem.

"We will shortly be lobbying hard once again to influence the complete closure of this export trade before it is too late, seeking new allies in this cause."

He said The European eel, Anguilla anguilla, is now critically endangered, and on the International Red List, and has plummeted by over 90 percent within the last 30 years.

Mr McCulloch said: "On our River Dore the best available survey evidence from the Environment Agency shows eel numbers to have responded to our efforts and to have risen eleven times since we began the project.

"This year we have begun restocking the River Arrow, which until relatively recently was a fantastically rich eel fishery but is now almost devoid of adult eels.

"We have also restocked eels into the lower Wye, placing them back into the river upstream of the commercial fishing activity."

Tony Norman, of the partnering Lugg and Arrow Fisheries Association, said the association is firmly behind the project and this year they have committed extra funds towards the restocking work.

He said: "It seems madness that a Red-listed, internationally endangered species with such an amazing and complex life-cycle, is being caught and lawfully-exported abroad, and that licences continue to be issued for this activity. We are very grateful to the key sponsor of this project for such critical financial support."