To improve understanding of the decline in the European eel population, a Danish research expedition with DTU Aqua's research vessel Dana explored the spawning areas in the Sargasso Sea in March-April 2014.

The recruitment of the European eel, monitored by the amount of glass-eel returning to Europe from the Sargasso Sea has been in dramatic decline during the last 30 years, and is at a severe low of only 3-5 per cent of earlier magnitude. This change and the consequences for eel fishery in Europe have led to intensified research on the oceanic phase in the life of the European eel.

Further field studies have been proposed, and in 2014 a Danish eel expedition set out – using DTU’s DANA IV- targeting the eel spawning grounds in the Sargasso Sea and the areas east of th...  (More Info)