The Aguirrebarrena company actively contributes to the preservation of eel stocks by participating every year in various French and European restockings. Thus, every year, the Aguirrebarrena company signs repopulation contracts with several public and private operators, carrying out repopulation projects in France and Europe.

In compliance with the French eel management plan, 60% of glass eel catches are intended for French and European repopulation.

TRACEABILITY

For each fishing season, we open all of our fishponds, covering three different UGA (Eel Management Units).

All purchases constitute batches which are stored by, Origin (UGA), and fishing day.

Each purchase of glass eels made is immediately documented by a fishing record, a receipt slip and an entry in the entry register with a systematic check upon receipt.

The traceability of each batch of glass eels can be consulted on each site holding these batches. Traceability management is essential for our activity in order to do quality work and guarantee total transparency and honesty on our part.

Our traceability can at any time be subject to control by state services (document available on site or upon justified request).

In parallel with this work, all the data collected during the glass eel season are transmitted on time to the administrations concerned. Via the France Agrimer electronic declaration systems or by sending a file collecting purchases on the one hand and sales on the other hand from CITES, the OFB and Affairs Maritimes. We electronically declare our purchases and sales on a daily basis via France Agrimer.

STOCK CAPACITY IN OUR PREMISES

The storage of glass eels is done in a basin supplied by a borehole/or a well and/or Town Water and operating in a closed and/or open circuit. Our facilities are equipped with a mechanical filtration system, a glycol water cooler system as well as a UV sterilizer in order to store the glass eels in optimal conditions.

All our sites have zoosanitary or sanitary approval, with the application of very strict safety, transport, cleaning and hygiene protocols, including the daily measurement of the physicochemical parameters of each pool (temperature, oxygen mg/ l, Ph, Nitrites NO2, Ammonia NH3).

The AGUIRREBARRENA company can store up to 3,000 kg of glass eels in optimal conditions.

Health monitoring

We entrust the various analyzes to the Laboratoire des Pyrénées et des Landes for the following parasitism studies: Anguillicola Crassus, Pseudodactylogyrus sp., Ichthyophtirius multifiliis

Laboratoires des Pyrénées et des Landes
Service Biologie Moléculaire – Virologie – Microbiologie
Laboratoires des Pyrénées et des Landes
1 rue Marcel David – BP 219
40004 Mont de Marsan cedex
Tél : 05 58 06 08 08 – Fax : 05 58 06 15 47
Web : www.labopl.com

SPILL PREPARATION

To meet your expectations, we prepare the glass eels for freshwater by reducing the salinity from catch to release to avoid osmotic shock, but also to separate injured fish from those suitable for the restocking project. In concrete terms, this means that the different batches arrive in a tank with a salinity of 10ppm, which is operated with a flow-through system. Once the salinity has dropped and the batches have been sorted (dead or injured fish are removed), the healthy fish are placed in other tanks.

TRANSPORT AND PACKAGING OF GLASS EELS

We offer two types of transport to guarantee the quality of the glass eel during its restocking:

  • Transport by refrigerated vehicle with packaging of the glass eels in polystyrene boxes (each weighed box can be easily transported from site to site to homogenize the dispersion of the larvae).
  • Transport of glass eels in water using tank trucks, with oxygenated tanks and water cooling system.

VISITE OUR SITES

We also suggest that our various contacts come and visit the site concerned before starting the project so that you can discover the place where the restocking glass eels will be stored.