eeliad blog

Yesterday we received back the first ‘pop up and drift tag’.  It was returned from the west Ireland coast and contains high resolution data on the diving behaviour of a silver eel as she left the river and made her way out to sea.

We haven’t had chance to look at the data in too much detail yet, but it’s exciting to get another ‘world first’ with this project, and the data from the tag will help us understand in more detail what happens to the eels as they make their perilous first movements back into the ocean.

It’s been a hectic month and I’ve not had the time I’d like to update the blog.  November saw the release of another 40 PSAT tagged eels and 50 archival tagged eels.  The wait is now on to receive the data back- it’s going to be a nervous year!

With the bulk of this year’s tagging out of the way, I’ll now be able to turn my attention to the next few months of work- and the arrival of the glass eels.  The more I think about it, the more I realise that eels are more like 4 species in one.  Each life stage has its own challenges and mysteries.  I have the nagging feeling that our project, while solving some mysteries, will only raise more!