The Black Market for Eels is Exploding
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- Опубліковано 20 вер 2024
- Smugglers are getting rich from the world’s slimiest black market: baby eels. The fragile state of freshwater eel species, like the critically endangered European eel, has driven a multibillion-dollar international trafficking trade. This episode of VWN Explains looks at the crackdown on eel crime around the world, including Interpol’s war on smuggling in Europe, and the growing attempts to save a species on the brink.
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"We don't know why the population is declining"....."But we can harvest them as babies and raise them in fish farms"
I THINK I FOUND THE PROBLEM HERE
Accountability are humans kryptonite
I remember my mom telling me of her youth when eels were just another fish you could fish and they were everywhere and how good they tasted, she says she misses those times.
Caught loads here in uk
Caught a green bay eel off the gulf of mexico, I was kinda afraid of it, don't know if it could bite and it was fast like lightning. I know the taste damn good esp as sushi.
Jeez! For $68 million you'd think they would figure out how to farm them.
They take 20 years to sexually mature, so it is basically a no go. They also migrate into the middle of the atlantic to breed.
it cant thats why they do it this way lol
@@JR-mh8vn University in japan figured it out its expensive though. Give it 2 more years
there was a type of tree nut that only grew in the amazon rainforest, when people tried to farm them the trees never even grew buds, some things just belong to the systems of nature
@MinecraftMastery-m5u or there isn't enough study around the conditions that produce the amazon. Sure we can get close but there could be a thousand missing factors in a lab.
What about banning the serving of endangered species in restaurants or selling them in supermarkets? Just like selling ivory is banned.
That’s how they turn to the black market
Mo mo mo money, money!
@@franciscorueda7165 Japan banned catching eels in nature. But almost every japanese eats an eel once in a while, they are very common in restaurants (as they come from abroad).
What you don t understand is that you can make it illegal, for example here in Portugal, then come the chinese and start to fish illegally and exporting also on the black market to china, so what's the difference? (mind you the cops patrol the protected areas)
People underestimate the man’s need for greed. People will make a buck off of anything. Trying to outlaw them creates these black markets. A market that’s influenced by the buyers and what they want, and not what the government tells you what you can buy, will prosper. You can spend your money better than the government, so why let them tell you how you spend it as well?
Elver poaching is becoming a major issue in Eastern Canada as well. Sad when people exploit animals for profit
payed for my university education pouching eels right in NS
Would love to see Vice covering this further, especially the madness that's happening across the border from Maine in New Brunswick.
I've got the feel for eel.
I used to know an eel smuggler. He was a real slippery character.
Can humanity learn to stop abusing and exploiting animals?
@piku5637
Unfortunately, no. Knowing they meet the same fate as sharks for shark fin soup, bycatch in the commercial fishing industry & fish in fish farms, it's a horrific & barbaric subsidized billion dollar industry run by greed, ego & carelessness.
* Had to edit due to censorship *
I would d sugges t watchin g S e a s p i r a c y o n N e t f l I x.
If you think we’re abusing animals, what are other animals doing to other animal species? Plenty of overpopulated species decimate populations if not controlled.
@@creamofthecrop5563because humans have choice. Most people are smart enough (not you) to understand that destroying nature is a bad thing.
dude there's 8 billion human now
you want animals to be safe maybe start cutting human down to 1 billion
nothing is more overpopulated than human
eating human should be legal
@@loucipher7782We got A LOT of homeless and prisons are full. LET'S EAT!
That's quite shocking! Our camera got on camera a similar story. The vaquita, the most critically endangered marine mammal on Earth, is a victim of gill nets used to catch the endangered totoaba fish, which is sold on the Chinese black market. Vaquitas, unable to detect the nets, become entangled and drown. With a population of fewer than 20, we explored the possibilities of saving the species or if we should just accept that it's too late.
So sad :(
Our camera got on camera? What does that mean?
Mexican president already said it is too late for that specie and he’s not doing nothing about it. No fight no money spent trying to help them. He just said it is too late for them …..
@@ervoro5949 They shot a story..cmon man ffs
@@hendriekevin4171 our camera got on camera don’t make sense idiot
One night under a dam I got to experience the glass eel migration at my feet I could see hundreds if not thousands of tiny glass eels all working there way to the dams fish ladder and I’m sure they crawled up the dams wall aswell , Im very excited I was able to experience that hopefully they will last
So you’re telling me you basically swam in a pool full of money like Scrooge McDuck and you didn’t make a killing by scooping up fistfuls and smuggling them in your underwear!?
You have way more self control than me.
@@SmokeyChipOatley I was fishing for stripers plus I’d have no idea who to sell em to
@@sp33dyswhitness-10 Last time I went fishing for strippers I got my heart broken and my wallet stolen.
@@SmokeyChipOatley stripers not strippers lmao
@@sp33dyswhitness-10 I said what I said.
Inmate 1: What are you in jail for bro?
Inmate 2 : Eel bruh 🤦♂️
Seeing all those elephant tusks stacked up was very disturbing. 🥺 Now eels…? Humans need to chill tf out. 😡
EEL LAUNDERING NOW I HEARD IT ALL
I run the Eel game in this city ! My Eels are the illest ! 😎
Back off, the eels are mine! 😂 ❤
Missed the opportunity to say eelest. But I got you back bro 😎
Eelest*
Are the they realest?
Chillest?
Eels are still considered an effortable fish for the family in many rural villages around the world ... Over fishing , abused of natural habitats making many once abundance species rare & expensive & many resort to eating edible fried insects in place of these increasingly expensive fish & seafood! 🙏🕯🌎
Affordable***
Bruh, just have a cheeseburger
Eel burger is way better matey potatey
thank you! someone with real taste buds!
Sheldon isn't remorseful for his actions. His poem is just about how he was trapped
The focus must be made on educating customers.
we are running out of time to save those species, hence we can't afford to educate them. We need to focus on enforcement and capital punishment.
I was attacked several times by moray eels when I used to collect abalone in La Jolla, California. I don’t hold it against the eels, but they scared the crap out of me.
They probably wouldn’t have bothered with me if I didn’t have a net bag of captured abalone hanging from my belt.
They are territorial, and will often attack divers in the Adriatic Sea as well. If you se a rock with a hole, just swim away - chances are a moray eel considers it prime real estate
They do taste good, especially in San Diego
Moray aren't true eels.
Can’t moray eels swim up your urethra
We have (or had) these on the eponymously named Eel river in northern California, but they're extremely rare now. The native people harvested and ate them, but in those days there were many riparian foodstuffs - salmon, trout, crawfish, in those days you could easily survive on fishing and hunting. It must have been amazing here, cultivating herbs and propagating oaks for the acorns and thinning fir and other trees both to encourage the oak trees but for firewood, and even for wood houses (they split slabs and made shingles & rough hewn logs).
It must have been so glorious living near the big rivers back then....of course they had minor wars like humans always have....
It's only a crime if you can't fight against the corrupt institutions
Just another rare delicacy for a stupid market.
A cheeky infodoc on eel smuggling?
How on earth did Vice end up in financial trouble?
This is even a large problem in rural and picturesque Nova Scotia
I wonder why the eels are disappearing. Could it be that we are basically doing everything we can to kill them? It's a mystery!
Vice, Thank you for covering and creating informative documentaries like this. If more people would cover topics such s this, we might have a fighting chance at real change. Until people are aware of the problems, we are unable to make great change.
Bot comment
Bro wtf I have two degrees can’t get 6 figs but billions offf eeels Jesus Christ
How does a guy like that only get 6 months... Not only is it a wildlife crime but tax evasion. It just goes to show how corrupt local snitches for pay are... (cops) I get he may have made a "deal" and snitched on his own but for that volume and knowledge at 70 deserves life and reparation's,
Anyone know why the MBS video from a couple days got removed?
I hate how the conversation always is ultimately about how this is going to negatively effect humans, and how we need to figure out a way to "sustainably" continue business as usual. How about a conversation about how we should just cease eating and exploiting the habitats of wildlife (and animals in general) altogether? Why is this so taboo?
Because food is food…? There’s nothing wrong with consuming food. Nature’s designed for that. What it isn’t designed for is excessive concentrated consumption. Nature takes time to replenish. That’s why we create farms to fulfill the excessive portion of demand without obliterating nature’s production numbers and demolishing it’s ability to reproduce the next cycle.
Some things are pretty established. Things like fruits, certain fish, cattle, poultry are fully industrialized. We don’t go “hunting” for them anymore. What’s born in nature majority stays in nature while the human demand is usually fulfilled with the industrial sector.
Your documentaries are best
I’m going to miss Vice 😭
@@HypePerformanceGroup - Me too. It was the best
@@HypePerformanceGroupwhy ?
my step dad told me about fishing for big eels in maine in the 80s. its gonna blow his mind there that valuable.
Um sir do you have any
This is why unagi is so expensive.
6 months in Prison, man that is harsh... WTF! 🤣🤣🤣 no wonder crime for this trade is so high!
The extent people would go through just to smuggle some expensive eels. What a slimy business-
Maybe vice should get into the eel business.
Might solve their money problems.
Very true
they don't have money problems anymore daddy george soros bought them
Come to Northeast India.. It cost around 4 US Dollars per Kilo.
Same to South India.
Great informative work! Thanks. I loved the poem
The fact that we get free videos on UA-cam by VICE News is truly a gift. 👏👏👏
Why does "VICE News" insist on background "music" while the narrator is speaking?
Ahh, so that’s where all my Jellied Eels from the Dishonoured series were coming from!
last week thought why not put fish in rainwater tanks that are only used for gardens 1/2 years harvest them $ or set up tank overflow into fish pond tanks & plants
At 4.17 Scandinavian countries Norway and Sweden are mislabeled as Finland.
A wild punch but:
Radioactive material can affect electric fields, and eels sense electric fields....could that be why numbers have reduced?
Eels are super easy and cheap to buy in Japan. They're in every grocery store, and they're really yummy. They are farmed in Japan and fed with a type of dough (rice, I think).
There are also restaurants in Korea that specialize in eel.
Those are sesame dregs.
You're misinformed on their farming. They're wild caught glass eels and raised in captivity just like explained in the video. They don't care and won't stop. They're very sneaky and quiet about their practices. You almost never hear them talk about it. They only focus on showing their heritage of preparing and serving the eels. They still aren't fully bred in captivity.
@@shindukess I saw a documentary about it. Sure, they still catch wild eels but they started breeding eels in the 60s. You can find the videos on UA-cam.
@@lindsayoverseas They cannot breed the eels in captivity to this day. You're confusing raising and growing in captivity for true mating and breeding in captivity. It wasn't until the 2010s a team of Japanese scientist were able to produce a few glass eels from fertilized eggs. They used hormones in the water and shark egg feed to feed the glass eels.
@@shindukess Interesting
I mean, what has it been ? under year or so when we finally discovered how the eels reproduce and migrate.
and they are already going to extict when we are spawn camping them.
Lol. I thought it said exploding eels. HAHAHA
it toke so long for humans to understand how eels reproduce
Great report!
They have such great operation names
I've thrown 16 used car batteries into the ocean to help the eels get a snack and recharge
I live in Delaware and got enough eels to take orders.
What is it with Asia’s appetite for this stuff,shark fins and eels.
Brits eat tf out of eels too
@@yasuke9317 no kidding!! I’ll have to check that out.
Well, here in Ifugao, Philippines those bigger spicies of ells, those are pest in rice fields but, another species of ell wich is smaller fortunately it is beneficial and the gov't help the people culture them.
Vice, hire me to go investigate who, is paying 35k for these things.. and why... and for what reason, what was the REASON?? Vice, HIRE ME TO DO IT.
Just a reminder that your old car batteries can go in the ocean to recharge the electric eels. Save the eels!
They're slippery and slimy
Black market eels......I need to hear this...
I'm surprised Tech bros aren't trying to make artificial eel meat . . .
All I could think about was The Mighty Boosh
in our country there is glass eel almost around area west sea. you can come to our farm in Indonesia
Poor fish
They are using. Them as conductors. Duh no brainer , God told me 👂
O e of the reasons why eels before all this was plentyful is the fact their larval state is transdermal they don't have to hunt to eat as compared to almost every other living creature they literally take in nutrients from the water around them till they are large enough to hunt this is only shared with one other fish the lady fish.
They haven’t been releasing a lot lately :/
7:31 why is there an eel craze. Help me understand 7:50
:O didn't saw it comming, so no more eels in some years
Wonder why they used the translucent news castor for the translucent eels?
Eels up inside ya, finding an entrance where they can!
Damn...where can I start? let me sell some eels.
EELS UP IN SIDE YA! FINDING AN ENTRENCE WHERE THEY CAN!
EELS!
EELS!
EELS!
Why is she holding a book and magnifying glass the entire vide?
Who would’ve thought that selling eels would be eellegal
I don’t give a crap about eels but since it’s so expensive the government wants a piece of it
People are making money. People want to live a good life. Struggling is not fun and not everyone can be a BOT in the system. Eliminate the need to work so much and the rest will fix itself.
Billions of people today will get on the treadmill and be a slave to earn a piece of paper.
No… that’s simply not true, bc .. GREED.
If the once-and-for-all legalization of endangered species listing would only turns their noses into smuggling, driving the frenzy scarcity and more hazardous counterfeits to share the cake, until the black market grows proportionally with ineffective and incompetent backdoor regulation, why don't we draft a figure above endangered level for all breeders to achieve sustainably, and introduce more entrepreneurship and employments, also its salience into local news?
Didn’t they say they don’t know how to breed them yet
You think these criminals would obey such minimum figures? No, they wouldn’t. And then the species would be completely wiped out.
@@griffinrogerss oh, i supposed we watched the same story. Maybe you're right, let's rumble.
@@_permanence At least we watched the same story. But my point is not to incentivize its scarcity of certain favouritism, roll up one's sleeve and cultivate above the endangered level.
somehow it doesn't interest me if you do not show how they are served to eat.
Harvesting them is not legal
Where is the mbs video you posted yesterday ??? You delete it okay
let me guess how much you sell your faith?? For
Come to the Great Lakes and get your eels....they are considered a invasive species.
Wait how did eel pit gut get here?
Lol eel pit cameo
First time I had eel was as a kid in a New Jersey supermarket. It was alive but the chef killed it cut it up and grilled it infront of me!! And served it over sushi. It was savory, a lil sweet, not fishy more like a teriyaki chicken flavor but softer meat. Absolutely delicious flavor. If you’ve never had eel I was suggest trying it at least once.
genta from detective conan love this
Ah yes try the very food you just heard about being critically endangered due to overconsumption. You idiot. Your actions have consequences. You just watched a 10 minute video on the topic and, yet, you failed to connect the dots between a fish in your stomach and a fish not being in the river.
People like you are why the world is failing, but you can change for the better. So please do it.
"If you’ve never had eel I was suggest trying it at least once." I agree eel tastes good, but no!! I'd suggest not tasting them at least once at the very least until the populations are back at a safe level. (Unless there's a species that's not endangered at all.)
Man people out there just eating anything.
I want to eat jellied mushrooms and have a pet eel.
Eel smuggling is how I met my wife
Government policies caused this destroying habit
seems an easy problem to solve, just find out how you can breed them in captivity. Surely they are a migratory fish like salmon ?
$2,000 a pound... OMG
Remember Vice from 2018
the story of eels is so sad.
what happened to Bin Salam video, did Vice remove it to appease the dictator? Stunning and brave.
I keep thinking about the mighty boosh while watching this.
Theres a guy in new york that catches them and puts them in a smokehouse, it was on a netflix documentary called Filthy Riches
THEY ARE VANISHING BECAUSE YOU KEEP EATING ALL OF THEM DUH!😂😂
These are endangered species. What the hell is going on in this world
illegal market for eels? wow
You know what's NOT exploding? Vice's worth! 😅
Great documentary
if the eel guys were willing to take a little pay deduction maybe they could just smuggle drugs like everyone else?