Stamps Wiki:EUROPA2021/8

Guernsey

Europa: Endangered National Wildlife

7 April 2021

Guernsey Post issued its contribution to the 2021 Europa stamp series on the theme Endangered Wildlife, a stamp featuring the European Eel.

The European Eel was once common and frequently caught to make eel pies and jellied eels but some estimates suggest that numbers have declined to less than one percent of historic levels. They live long, complex lives, travelling thousands of miles across the Atlantic from the Sargasso Sea, near Bermuda and repeatedly change their appearance. Fewer than one in 500 eel larvae are thought to survive the long, hard journey from the Sargasso Sea to Europe. They migrate back to the Sargasso Sea to breed and to die. They are now listed as Critically Endangered