The Sustainable Eel Group is proud to mark World Eel Day 2025 with renewed commitment and celebration, standing alongside scientists, artists, filmmakers and conservationists, in honouring one of nature’s most enigmatic creatures. Long considered a biological mystery, the European eel’s life cycle continues to captivate and confound, traversing thousands of kilometres from the Sargasso Sea to inland rivers in Europe and northern Africa. Its journey, ancient and yet only partially understood, offers a poignant metaphor for resilience and fragility in the face of mounting environmental threats, inspiring figures from all corners of the arts.

This year’s World Eel Day theme, ‘Eelvasion!’, captures both the evasive nature of the eel itself and the pressing need to evade the forces driving it toward extinction. With populations of the European eel having declined by over 90% in recent decades, the celebration is as much a call to action as it is a tribute to its stoicism. Across Europe and beyond, communities are engaging through a vibrant international illustration competition, inviting artists of all ages to explore the eel’s extraordinary migrations and the hazards that block their passage. Pioneered and promoted by illustrator and academic John Kilburn at the University of Plymouth, it anticipates art becoming advocacy and breathes emotional depth into otherwise opaque scientific issues.

To deepen this connection, SEG has collaborated on a special episode of the Talk of the Thames podcast, titled “Nature’s Greatest Mystery: The Story of the Eel.” Hosted by Chloe Russell and featuring SEG’s Founder and Chairman, Andrew Kerr, the conversation traces the eel’s baffling biology and the urgent conservation measures required to save it. Drawing on myth, science, and policy, the episode invites listeners into the watery underworld of this shape-shifting species, highlighting not only what we have learned but how much remains concealed in the eel’s centuries-old secrecy. It is intended to inspire and inform a new generation of conservationists and environmental commentators, who see beauty in the eel’s life story.

As climate change and ecological degradation reshape our natural world, World Eel Day reminds us of what we risk losing if we fail to act. The eel’s disappearance would signal more than the loss of a single species. It would mark a rupture in the integrity of the freshwater, estuarine, and marine ecosystems we all depend on. On this day, the Sustainable Eel Group reaffirms its dedication to protecting the European eel and invites others to join in this effort, be that through art, education, policy, and persistent curiosity. Let us celebrate the eel not only for its mystery, but for the deeper, more connected future it asks us to imagine and safeguard.

Next Steps

More about John Kilburn and the Eel Suitcase Project

Listen to Andrew’s Talk of the Thames Podcast