Eels are in crisis, but hope is coming on-stream
Eel passes might help save these odd animals from disaster
A FEW MILES west of Glastonbury Tor, on a midsummer evening, two men stand next to a waterway, waiting for eels. England’s rivers once shivered with eels; her bellies were filled by them; her rents were paid in them. Medieval England ran on eels, part cuisine, part currency. Ely was so eely it was named for them; its abbey received rents in them (26,275 eels from a single fen alone).
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “A midsummer night’s stream”
Britain June 26th 2021
- Procurement reforms offer a clue about Britain after Brexit
- After Brexit, devolution in Northern Ireland is in a parlous state
- Labour could lose a by-election over the issue of Palestine
- Eels are in crisis, but hope is coming on-stream
- The triple-lock rule poses a post-pandemic problem
- Britain proposes—again—to privatise Channel 4
- Britain, a diverse country for decades, is now superdiverse
- Britain’s government says it wants an economic boom
From the June 26th 2021 edition
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