European eel farming is complicated by critically endangered wild eel populations, as aquaculture depends on wild-caught glass eels. Welfare and conservation are intertwined.
European eel farming faces a fundamental ethical contradiction: it depends on removing wild-caught juveniles from a critically endangered population. Both the conservation and welfare cases for reducing eel consumption are compelling. Wild eel populations need juvenile recruitment to recover, and farmed eel welfare standards are among the poorest in aquaculture.