LEVELS of young eels in the River Severn have dropped dramatically over the past 20 to 30 years, according to a report released by the Environment Agency.

In the report entitled Our Nation's Fisheries, released today, the Severn is described as one of the main commercial fisheries for baby eels, or elvers, and that eel stocks are critically low.

The number of elvers returning to the Severn has collapsed to just one to two per cent of previous levels - a decrease of 90 per cent over the past 20 to 30 years.

And Environment Agency spokeswoman Lyn Fraley said the levels of elvers in the Worcester stretch of the Severn could have dropped by even more as it is further upstream - where they migrate.

Elvers begin to appear in the Severn in the spring and the fishing of baby eels is a tradition - especially on the stretch from Sharpness to Tewkesbury.

The Environment Agency estimates up to 400 netsmen a night fish for them on the Severn.

Elvers not caught will travel upstream and spend 10 to 12 years in the river before returning to spawn in the western Atlantic. Eels returning to the Severn may be one in a million.

The reasons for their decline are unclear, although fishing is not thought to be one of the main causes.

Changes in the marine environment are a possible cause as well as them being eaten by predators and man-made barriers such as weirs acting as an obstacle to migration.

Surveys on the Severn in 1998 and 1999 compared densities of adult eel with those found in 1983 - which found no evidence for a major change in eel densities, even though there had been a serious decline in young eels.

The report also shows salmon stocks in the Severn are seriously depleted, with a considerable decline in catches since the 1990s.

Salmon stocks only achieved 69 per cent of their safe conservation limit in 2002 - but showed a marked improvement in 2003 when populations reached 136 per cent of their conservation limit.

However, the report is not all bad news - with research showing that thriving and diverse coarse fish populations are now present in more rivers nationwide than at any time in the past century.

Copies of Our Nation's Fisheries can be downloaded from www.environment-agency.gov.uk/onf