Visited Nijvis BV commercial Eel farm today after a fairly tense (mainly because I messed up my rental car details and was running late) 1.5 hr journey from Amsterdam. Found the town but only found the eel farm thanks to a gentleman in the street equiped with a GPS aerial photo app on his phone!!!
Was met by a very sweet Admin lady, sorry forgot your name but could not forget that extremely welcome coffee and easter cake......a sort of fruity/doughy bread with a sweet marzipan middle, so nice.
What an amzing place, located on an industrial estate, looks nothing like a place where you would expect an eel farm.
One of the Directors, Willliam Swinkels, gave me a very good introductory talk and video to his business then we had a wonder round his farm..........WOW!!!
60,000 juvenile eels in a 2metre long trough, 0.5m wide by 0.5m deep, climbing out of the water on each other to be first to the food....amazing.
Nijvis produces eels for the table but also produces 4 million juveniles for re-stocking. He grows on the juveniles from captured elvers but aims to have a zero impact i.e from all the elvers that are imported onto his farm, those that are destined for re-stocking compensate for the total removal in that they have a much higher survival rate and hence contribute more to silver eel escapement.
A very impressive place with total re-circulation, closely monitored water quality through biofiltration, UV disinfection, solids filtration, 24 hr presence.
William has an intruiging theory, he believes that not all European Eels spawn in the Sargasso sea, his theory is that as soon as they reach the depths of the continental shelf they may spawn at more local regions. Evidence supporting this is cited in age determination of glass eels which William says can be 1-2 months old, impossible if they drifted over from the Sargasso. Intruiging theory.
I obtained a lot of invaluable information today that will help me eventually start my own eel re-stocking project back home in Wales.
Thanks to William and his team for giving up their valuable time
No comments:
Post a Comment