Third Workshop on Designing an Eel Data Call (WKEELDATA3)

The Third Workshop on Designing an Eel Data Call (WKEELDATA3) met to design a Data Call to all countries having natural production of European eel.

The life cycle of the European eel is complex, with a unique spawning area in the Sargasso Sea and growth areas widely distributed across Europe and Northern Africa. The stock is genetically panmictic, but the continental eel stock shows strong local and regional differences in population dynamics and local stock structures (sex ratio, length and age distributions). Local impacts by fisheries with various gears may vary from almost nil to heavy exploitation. Other forms of anthropogenic mortality (e.g. hydropower, pumping stations) have an impact on eel too, and vary in distribution and local relevance. Data on stock and impacts are reported to the Working Group on Eels (WGEEL), which supports the official ICES Advice. Data correspond to several different life stages, from juveniles to pre-spawning eels, in different habitats (from freshwater to saltwater environments).

To collect those data more efficiently, ICES and GFCM started a Data Call process in 2017. The ICES Workshop on Designing an Eel Data Call (WKEELDATA) defined the main steps of this process, generated the first version of the Data Call and improved the WGEEL database to host the collected data. During the 2017 meeting of the WGEEL, the first data were collected and integrated into the WGEEL database. In 2018, a workshop on Tools for Eel (WKTEEL) improved the integration and use of these data. During this workshop the database was improved further, Data Call spreadsheets were adapted, enhanced and automated tools for extracting and visualizing data from the PostgreSQL database were developed. In 2019, a second Workshop on Designing an Eel Data Call (WKEELDATA2) improved the process for the next Data Call, by extracting data from the database to send back to national correspondents, by developing tools to enable access to the database to the WGEEL through a local raspberry server, and by designing the Data Call sheets, database, integration tools and visualization for new types of data (Yellow eel standing stock series and silver eel series).

This, the third WKEELDATA workshop, has finalised the annual Data Call templates and improved and updated the annexes required should the European Commission request an Eel Management Plan Evaluation workshop. This report contains a list of tasks that would need to be addressed by this evaluation workshop and outlines what data are required and how the Data Call will fulfil the data needs of ICES.