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Does anyone know if it is possible for eels to be raised in captivity (farm raised) and then released back into the wild once mature to spawn. The reason I ask is that if the commercial fishery takes (and I’m using numbers from earlier in this post) 2.5 million elvers (which at the stated rate of 100,000 elvers to produce one spawn ready eel equates to only 250 adult eels), couldn’t something be worked out that they were required to release a percentage of those eels after they reach maturity to spawn. To me it seems that raising the eels in captivity and releasing them as an adult would greatly increase their chances of survival (based on the assumption that the majority of predation and mortality occurs in the juvenile life stages) and that if the numbers taken and percentages returned to the wind are figured out correctly, having a commercial eel farming industry could actually help eel populations if done responsibly. Keep in mind that its early in the morning and I’m just thinking out loud here with no research to back me up on this.
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