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European eel
European eel (Anguilla anguilla), The fattiest fish here and a critically endangered species — an occasional delicacy at most.. The national eating advice, why it applies, the rules that matter when you catch it, and what the kitchen changes about the numbers.
Critically endangered. Releasing one matters far more than eating it.
Where it lives
Every European eel is born in the Sargasso Sea, drifts across the Atlantic as a transparent larva, enters fresh water as a glass eel and then spends anything from five to twenty years growing in a lake or river before making the return migration to spawn once and die. In this region much of the stock is there because it was put there: Estonia has run eel stocking into Võrtsjärv for decades, because the natural migration route is broken by dams and distance.
Why the advice says what it says
Two things make eel a special case. Ecologically, the European eel is assessed as critically endangered, it is listed on CITES Appendix II, and the EU has run a dedicated stock-recovery framework since Council Regulation (EC) No 1100/2007, with closed periods for eel fishing added in recent years. Practically, an eel is the fattiest fish anyone in this region eats — around 12 g of fat per 100 g raw, several times a pike — and it is long-lived and bottom-feeding. Fat plus longevity plus sediment contact is the strongest possible accumulation profile for dioxins and PCBs, and eel is consistently among the fish with the highest measured loads in European monitoring. Smoked eel concentrates that further, because smoking removes water and leaves the fat. There is no preparation that helps: the fat is the food.
The advice
| Who it applies to | What the advice says | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Everyone | An occasional delicacy rather than a regular fish. The fat that makes it worth eating is where the contaminants are. | Reasoning from the fat content and accumulation profile above |
| People who are or may become pregnant, and children | The most cautious reading of the national advice on fatty fish applies here, because eel is the fattiest of them. | Reasoning from national advice on fatty Baltic fish |
| Anyone who catches one | Check before you keep it. Recreational eel fishing is closed or permit-only across much of the region. | EU eel recovery measures and national implementation |
The rules
What the rule book says about this fish, described by instrument rather than printed as a number:
- The European eel is under a dedicated EU recovery framework, and closed periods for eel fishing are part of it. These change; assume the fishery is closed until you have confirmed otherwise.
- Where eel fishing is allowed at all it is by named permit, and recreational permits are limited or absent.
- An eel taken as bycatch is not a free fish. The obligation to release it, and how, is set in the national rules.
- Eel is on CITES Appendix II, so moving it across borders is regulated in its own right.
In the kitchen
Smoked eel is the traditional preparation across the whole Baltic coast and it is genuinely one of the great regional foods. It is also the most concentrated form: hot-smoking drives off water and leaves the fat, so a portion of smoked eel is a bigger dose of everything — good and bad — than the same weight of fresh fish. Serve it as a delicacy, in the amount a delicacy is served in.
This is a reference page, not a fishing licence and not medical advice. Minimum sizes, closed seasons, bag limits and licence prices are set per country and per water body and change most years, so no number for them is printed here — each species page says which instrument sets the rule and where to look up the figure for the water you are standing on. If a clinician has given you a fish frequency or a contaminant instruction, that instruction outranks anything on this page.
Nutrition figures
| Per 100 g, raw | Amount |
|---|---|
| Energy | 184 kcal |
| Protein | 18.4 g |
| Fat | 11.7 g |
| Carbohydrate | 0 g |
| Fibre | 0 g |
| Salt | 0.1 g |
| Published row | Eel, raw |
Related published rows:
- Eel, cooked — 236 kcal per 100 g
- Marinated eel — 184 kcal per 100 g
Typical round weight for the calculator: 300–1000 g.
Eating advice: Finnish Food Authority and Swedish Food Agency national advice on Baltic and inland fish. Contaminant ceilings and the Baltic derogation: Regulation (EU) 2023/915; weekly tolerable intakes: EFSA methylmercury (2012) and dioxins/dioxin-like PCBs (2018). Nutrition figures: USDA FoodData Central rows published on this site. Checked 2026-09-06.
Frequently asked questions
Can I still legally catch eel?
In much of the region, no, or not without a specific permit that recreational anglers cannot get. EU recovery measures and national rules have progressively closed eel fishing, and the closed periods are revised. Treat a hooked eel as a fish to return, and confirm the current rule for your water before doing anything else.
Fish in the same advice group
Baltic herring
Small herring freely; large herring over about 17 cm is limited for young people and in pregnancy.
Salmon (wild Baltic)
One to two times a month for young people and in pregnancy; farmed salmon is a different fish for this purpose.
Sea trout
The same Baltic fatty-fish reasoning as salmon; heavily protected as a fish.
Baltic sprat
A short-lived oily fish; no size-based advisory of its own.
All species compared
The full table, grouped the way the advice groups it.
Eat the fish, log the fish
TempoLife tracks what you actually ate against the same food data linked on this page, so a fish meal shows up in your omega-3, vitamin D and salt totals without a second thought.