alt Hacker News> The eels hatch in the Sargasso Sea — a swath of water in the Atlantic Ocean east of the Bahamas with lots of floating seaweed — and drift from there to North America while they grow from larvae to elvers, with the transparent look that inspired the term “glass eels.” When they are caught in Maine, they are sold to dealers and most often shipped to east Asia, where they are raised to maturity, then used as food in meals like sushi.
Interesting. I'm curious why they aren't just raised on fish farms in Asia then?
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Maybe because they never swim towards East Asia? East Asia is literally the other side of the globe, Pacific, not Atlantic.
These eels have never been observed mating or laying eggs in the wild, they migrate from freshwater to salt water and breed at extreme depths probably, and their bodies go through significant transformations preparing to mate.
The best they've done is inject eels with hormones in the lab to force parts of the breeding cycle but that's a far far cry from agriculture.
Fishing is measured by weight. Catching 100 lbs of adult eels gets you 100 lbs of eels. Catch 100 lbs of babies, feed them up, and you have 10,000 lbs without violating the catch limit.
They are raised on fish farms, from capture to prime eating conditions, but eel spawning is mysterious and at least Wikipedia suggests eel reproduction is not currently reproducable in captivity.