Sunday, 24 January 2016

Eel fisherman quits amid plunging eel numbers

Britain's last eel catcher will bring a 3,000 year old tradition to an end as he says he can’t find a successor or make the job pay

By Agency
1:50PM GMT 19 Jan 2016

Britain’s last eel catcher will bring a 3,000-year-old tradition to an end as he says he can’t find a successor or “live on empty pockets”.

Peter Carter, 50, has been trapping eels using the same methods that have been employed on the Fens in eastern England for a staggering 3,000 years.

But now devastated Mr Carter is hanging up his nets amid plunging eel stocks.

Peter's own family has traced its eel fishing connections back to at least 1475. But archaeologists have found clear evidence of the same cottage industry arcing back many more centuries than that to the Bronze Age.

Mr Carter, of Outwell, west Norfolk wrote in an statement posted online: "It breaks my heart but I can't live on empty pockets.


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