Short-term responses of glass eels transported from UK to small Belgian streams

peer reviewed ; Restocking of inland waters with glass eels is one of the recovery options to prevent the decline of European eel Anguilla anguilla (L.) populations. We studied the growth, dispersion, density and habitat preferences in the imported glass eels from United-Kingdom and stocked in three typologically different small Belgian streams, using electrofishing surveys around the single release point, 1 year following stocking. Our results clearly support that the recaptured individuals stocked in our streams farther from the sea, survived, grew, dispersed upstream and downstream. Elvers... Mehr ...