Eels in a park pond? About 150 eels were found during de-silting work in the ponds in the 37-acre Ward Park in the centre of Bangor on Belfast Lough.
That’s about 5,000 km from their spawning area, the Sargasso Sea in the Western Atlantic. The Eels are better known in Northern Ireland as those associated with the largest wild-caught eel fishery in Europe near Toome in the Northwest corner of Lough Neagh, the largest freshwater lake in the British Isles.
Eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea and the young migrate to the freshwater rivers of Europe as “glass” eels to grow and mature to adult eels, which after a long period (could be up to 20 or more years) they make the journey back to sea to begin the long migration to the Sargasso again.
As reported in the County Down Spectator, the dredging work in the Park revealed the eels, and David Kelly, director with the County Fermanagh-based Paul Johnston Associates Fisheries Consultants, was responsible for relocating the eels to safety while the des-silting was carried out. Mr Kelly told Afloat how that process was carried out. “As each section of Ward Park ponds was due to be de-silted, the eels that were rescued from that section were captured and stored temporarily in basins at the side of the park (only for max. of 30-40mins). Eels were then released into a different part of the Ward Park complex away from the de-silting works. This activity was repeated sequentially around the complex as the contractors de-silted different sections”.
Around 150 eels were rescued over the period of the works.
David Kelly Photo: Paul Johnston Associates
Mr Kelly explained further. “Eels generally ranged from about 15cm long to 55-60cm, but we got one around 90cm. Most of the eels were aged from just over a year to perhaps 25-30 years. There is a possibility that the largest were older, but we can only estimate how old.”
It is thought by some locals, that the original eels entered the river system of which the Ward Park ponds are part, via the culvert where the river meets the sea in the corner of Bangor Marina and a member of a local walking group recalls as a child, seeing eels in the river which flows into the upper pond.
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