A farm 

 for growing 

 eels 



Ever thought of eel farming? UNC Sea Grant 

 researchers have. They've set up a demonstration 

 eel farm three miles up the Neuse River from New 

 Bern to capture baby eels, or elvers, and raise them 

 to marketable size. 



Europeans and Japanese regard the eel as a deli- 

 cacy. The fish is so popular in Japan that demand 

 for the food exceeds supply. While Europeans eat 

 mature eels weighing three-quarters to one pound 

 — which are already being exported from North 

 Carolina — , the Japanese prefer smaller eels 

 weighing one-quarter to one-half pound. The six 

 to eight inch long elver is also popular as bait. 



The eel farming project got underway in 1973 

 with a grant from the Coastal Plains Regional 

 Commission to UNC Sea Grant engineering ad- 

 visory agents through the North Carolina State 

 University Industrial Extension Service. The 

 grant supported a pilot study on the feasibility of 

 eel farming in North Carolina. Study results 

 showed a potential for eel culture in the state and 

 UNC Sea Grant took over funding for the project 

 in January. 



Many of the techniques being put to use at the 

 New Bern eel farm have been adopted from the 

 Japanese who in the past several years have de- 

 veloped successful eel harvesting and farming 

 methods. 



A visit in March, 1973 from Dr. Kazutami 

 Nishio of the eel research and development section 

 of a Japanese eel farming cooperative provided 

 UNC Sea Grant investigators with valuable basic 

 information on when, where and how to catch and 

 care for the elvers. While Japanese techniques were 

 developed for farming a Japanese eel, Sea Grant 

 investigators have found many of their methods 

 useful in raising the American eel, common in 

 eastern North Carolina. 



The first step in eel farming is capturing tiny 

 elvers. In the late winter and early spring, when 

 they begin heading upstream, elvers are easily 

 caught with dip nets around dams, in streams and 

 in other areas where their inland movement is re- 

 stricted and they tend to bunch up, according to 

 Sea Grant researchers William Rickards and Walt 

 Jones. 



Jones, Rickards and John Foster, an assistant 

 on the project, captured thousands of tiny elvers 

 one day in mid February as they were fighting to 

 make their way over a small dam near Newport. 

 Indoor holding tanks at the eel culture laboratory 

 located on Weyerhaeuser land were home for the 

 elvers until early May when they were transferred 

 to an outdoor holding pond. 



When caught, elvers must be handled with care 



Walt Jones, Bill Rickards and John Foster capture 

 elvers in creek near New Bern. 



to avoid damaging the skin. Damaged skin weak- 

 ens the young eels, leaving them vulnerable to 

 disease, according to Rickards and Jones. A further 

 safeguard against disease is a two-day chemical 

 "bath" given the elvers just after they are caught. 



It is in the indoor tanks that elvers must acquire 

 a taste for a specially prepared diet — a critical step 

 in their successful growth. Elvers that have been 

 accustomed to feeding on live food must learn to 

 eat a mixture of minced deboned fish, starch, vita- 

 mins and salt. 



By early spring, when they are transferred to an 

 outdoor pond the elvers are entering a stage of 

 rapid growth which is given an extra boost by the 

 warm temperatures of the spring and summer 

 months. According to Rickards, if the fall is mild, 

 elvers caught in February should be ready for the 

 bait market before winter. 



In some Japanese eel farming operations, nearly 

 half of the elvers held in indoor tanks for the first 

 two months after capture have died, largely be- 

 cause of disease. So far this year Sea Grant re- 

 searchers have lost less than two percent of those 

 elvers captured in February. Rickards attributes 

 this low mortality rate largely to the use of well 

 water in the tanks this year. Last year Neuse River 

 water was used and mortality rates were signifi- 

 cantly higher. Naturally occurring disease or- 

 ganisms in the river water could have been con- 

 taminating the water, Rickards thinks. 



See "Eels," page U 



