“Eels don’t respect international borders”
Right now, you may be wondering why I chose to lead with this quote when talking about “crimes and consequences” but trust me, it’s relevant. For centuries, the Japanese have loved eating eel. It’s ingrained in their culinary culture up to a point where the excessive demand has driven the population of Japanese eels (Anguilla Japonica) into a state of endangerment. Japan (as well as a few other countries) started to import eels from Europe to keep up with demand, up to a point where European eels are now also endangered, even more so than their Asian cousins. Unlike Japan, Europe understood the problems with overfishing for eels and outlawed the exportation of the creatively-named Anguilla Anguilla species, which brings us back to crime.
As shown historically, declaring an action illegal does not mean the action stops taking place. This is exactly the case in the eel trade, which globally is now worth up to £2.5 billion. Smuggled eels were suddenly hidden among other fish containers before disposable properties were used for storing the slithery buggers. Then smugglers started to bring them aboard hand luggage on planes, realising they could smuggle up to £45000 worth of eels before even being tried. The biggest bust for eel smuggling came in 2020 when a Malaysian man was caught smuggling over £53 million of glass eels between 2015 and 2017. The current price of 1kg of baby glass eels is roughly £7000; 1kg of mature glass eels can easily sell for more than £40000.
Once the eels get to Asia, they tend to be bought by only a few mafia families near Hong Kong, before being produced in China and sold around Asia. Europol and Interpol have been working increasingly hard to end this black market to protect biodiversity and ensure the survival of eels in the long term. Europol has done a fairly competent job at it which is why we’re seeing an increase in illegal eel catching in the US and a decrease in Europe. Good job guys!
Fun fact: We do not know how eels reproduce.
“Uhh waiter, there seems to be caesium-137 in my meal”
Almost 13 years after the nuclear accident at Fukushima, the Japanese government has decided to release the treated water in and around the area. Scientifically, there is little evidence to suggest that this is going to cause significant harm to the health of the public, but it still feels a little weird knowing this water is being released back into the sea.
It’s not entirely irrational to be hesitant about this because there have been radioactive fish caught by fishermen in zones deemed safe, one report showed a catch with 180 times the legal limit of caesium-137. But these fish were deemed to be “ones who got away” from the nets used to trap and contain the Fukushima bunch, and that technically has nothing to do with the treated water, which shows no sign of radioactivity and is separate from the escaped/uncaptured fish.
Still, the iffy sentiment remains, and I’m not alone in feeling it. Hong Kong and China, Japan’s biggest fish trading partners, have both said that they’ll impose strict restrictions on Japanese fish if the release goes ahead. Russia also is taking precautions.
Contrarily, the EU has lifted restrictions on importing Japanese food, and South Korea has endorsed the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report on the situation, in which it stated that the Japanese water has been treated and is now safe. After all, it’s not like the Japanese are recklessly dumping its 1.3 million tonnes of radioactive water all in one go either. This is a long-term operation spanning 30 to 40 years, with constant monitoring and plenty of testing and evidence to suggest that the wildlife of Fukushima is no longer a significant threat to humans.
Fun fact number 2: Nuclear energy has already prevented over 1.8 million (premature) deaths.
Carlos Welford 
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