by Tomás Brenner, Mainz, Germany

BIOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT

Working Party on Eel

The Second Session of the Joint EIFAC/ICES Working Group on Eel took place from 23 to 27 September 1996 in IJmuiden (Netherlands). The Session was attended by 41 participants from 29 countries. Thirty-two papers were presented and seven posters exhibited.

The Report of the Working Group has been published as EIFAC Occasional Paper 33. Future activities of the Group will consist in a Symposium on anguillid eels. The Convenor, C. Moriarty, having held this position for six years, expressed the wish to stand down. The Working Party elected W. Dekker (Netherlands) as the new Convenor. G. Fontenelle (France) was appointed Vice-Convenor.

The Convenor, Willem Dekker (Netherlands), could not send any further information because of his current work.

Progress in the Working Party on electric fishing has been slow due to heavy commitments by members of the group. It was anticipated that a set of guidelines on working practices in electric fishing in different habitats would have been completed but this has proved impossible. The objectives of the guidelines are to provide information on the best methods and gears to be used under various scenarios, mechanisms for maximizing efficiency, mechanisms for minimizing the harmful effects on fish and finally health and safety considerations.

Part of the delay has also been strategic because a new proposal is being put to the European Standardization Organization funding to standardize electric fishing working practices. This proposal is being dealt with by the University of Göteborg in Sweden and a working group to standardize the working practices is expected to meet in September 1998. It is likely that drafts of the EIFAC working procedures will be used as a basis for this work. It is proposed that finalization of the guidelines for electric fishing is delayed until after the standardization working party meets, to which the Convenor of the EIFAC Working Party, Ian G. Cowx (UK), has been invited.

There has been no action in the intersession due to the heavy workload on the part of the Convenor, W.L.T. van Densen (Netherlands), who expressed his wish to resign. It was not possible to find a successor.

The Convenor, Ian G. Cowx (UK), reported that good progress had been made in this Working Party.

First to mention is the publication by Fishing News Books of the Proceedings of the EIFAC/HIFI Symposium on Stocking and Introductions of Fish held in Hull in April 1996, and edited by I.G. Cowx.

The Convenor of the Working Party participated in the FAO/DflD Expert Consultation on Stock Enhancement in Bangladesh in April 1997. The proceedings of this meeting are in the final stages of preparation and will come out in due course through FAO.

An intersessional Working Party meeting took place in conjunction with the 19^th European Ichthyological Congress in Trieste in Italy in August 1997. The objective of this meeting was to have a preliminary discussion on guidelines for the stocking and introduction of fish into European fresh waters. Good progress was made and a draft document outlining protocols will be circulated in the near future.

Recently links have been established in the ICES Working Party on Stock Enhancement and Ranching to develop a Stock Enhancement home page and discussion group on the internet. This home page is still being developed but can be visited on http://www.efan.no/was.

The Convenor, V. Dimitriou (Greece), reported that a meeting of the Working Party was held on 15 June 1996 during the Nineteenth Session of EIFAC in Dublin.

No further progress could be reported. However, the present Convenor has announced his wish to resign and suggested that someone else should take his place.

Some progress has been made in this Working Party. Due to other commitments and priorities M.W. Aprahamian�s (UK) draft will not be completed before this time next year.

Following the request of the last session the Secretariat had asked countries to submit any maps of fish distribution and water quality available in Europe. Five countries have replied and maps were available for individual regions in Germany and Italy. These maps were all very different in approach and it would be difficult to summarize them at this stage. They could perhaps be completed with a pan-European guide to fishes. Although this approach may prove expensive, an alternative would be to update the EIFAC Technical Paper 52 � The Inland Fisheries of Europe, which was published in 1990 or the European Inland Water Fish Multilingual Catalogue which was published by arrangement with FAO by Fishing News Books in 1971.

Mr. Toni Lelek agreed to serve as Convenor of this new Working Group.

The Working Party on Recreational Fisheries should report to Sub-Commission I with respect to the recommendations on improved data collection systems and the associated joint European survey of recreational fisheries. However, no information has been received on this subject.