Product details

Title

Sushi Survivor

Artist

Julia Manning RE (i)

Medium

Linocut (i)

Numbered

/6

Size (WxH)

50 x 75cm

Framed

No

Ref. No

24567

The eels we find in our Somerset waterways and wetlands may spend more than 25 years in freshwater, on average males spend 10–14 years in freshwater and females 12- 20 years. We can only age eels by examining the otoliths or ‘ear stones’ in their head which lay down growth rings like the rings of a tree.

On dark nights in autumn and winter, normally with the river in flood, silver eels migrate en masse down our river catchments. They are single-minded in their quest and, surprisingly, will move overland through wet grass to get to a stream or river from an isolated pond. They will even swim into noisy pumps and turbines in order to reach the sea.

In the last few years some pumping stations have been adapted to use ‘fish friendly’ pumps but many remain as either obstructions to this migration or as outright ‘killers’.