WELWYN NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY
8pm on Wednesday June 23rd ... our next free virtual talk.
All about Anguillids: Conservation, Ecology and some Eely Horrible History
Yes! You are right! It’s a talk about EELS.. These are surely the animal about which the least is known so we are in for a revelatory evening at the end of June. I have only had three encounters with eels; the first was during the war when my mother and I visited my father who was billeted in Huyton, Liverpool. We stayed in a house which had a swimming pool in the garden, “Don’t go near that, Judith, it’s got eels in it!” Secondly, I gave my teenage sons eel for their supper – that didn’t go down too well, and, thirdly, when we visited my husband’s brother in Limerick and found that the River Shannon was one of the major producers of eels and exported them to Europe.
I am sure that things have changed immensely since those days and I’m so looking forward to hearing what David Johnson has to say. I believe the eel population has fallen rather drastically and we are now being dissuaded from eating them – is this ‘goodbye’ to jellied eels then? But seriously, their life cycle sounds to be amazing with them migrating thousands of miles, living as long as we do, spending a lot of energy on sex, having some of the attributes of fish and some of amphibians… I could go on but we have an expert waiting to tell us all.
David Johnson, our speaker, is Fisheries Technical Officer for
Hertfordshire and North London. He has a Master’s Degree from Hull and a wider interest in aquatic ecology with extensive experience in surveying freshwater fish, amphibians, water voles, badgers, bats and otters as a freelance ecologist. This picture shows him holding a chub. The Zoom link to join our meeting at 8pm on Wednesday, June 23rd will be posted a couple of days beforehand on this website; we very much look forward to seeing you.
Judith Watson
MEMBERSHIP
Why not become a member - only £15 a year? Until we can meet again, please send your details to our treasurer, Richard Darby, 3, The Cottages, Pottersheath Road, Welwyn AL6 9SU, accompanied by a cheque.
