Playing hard to get: cost of aphrodisiac eels soars

[emad]

The Independent
By John Lichfield in Paris
13 April 2005


Baby eels, once a cheap, aphrodisiac delicacy on the French Atlantic coast, have become so rare this winter and spring that they are more expensive than caviar.

Ecologists have appealed to the French government and the European Commission to ban fishing of the eels, known as pibale or glass eels, before they slither into oblivion. Others blame the building of dams, and the pollution of rivers and estuaries with residues of chemicals and pesticides used by farmers.

The tiny, transparent eels are spawned by adults which travel to Europe from the Sargasso Sea, off Florida, to the rivers and estuaries of western France. Once fished in their millions between November and April, they have become increasingly scarce.

At up to €900 (£614) a kilo - compared to the equivalent of €3.50 a kilo 40 years ago - restaurants in France have had to take them off the menu. Even at that price, they still find Asian buyers, principally the Chinese, who rear them until they are fully grown then sell them to Japan.

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=628861

ONCE read somewhere that they're used as sex toys....hope they're not electric eels though...