>This is in part because, in Europe and the Americas, we have generally moved away from eating eel on anything like a regular basis. Consequently, the idea of e

>This is in part because, in Europe and the Americas, we have generally moved away from eating eel on anything like a regular basis. Consequently, the idea of eels having any type of social or economic value appears less normal to us the thought of other animals or commodities having negotiable value. This makes it sound like we simply lost our taste for eel, but the truth is that the European eel is critically endangered after years of overfishing. I'm sure they were still a delicacy if they were available. Japanese eels popular in unagi dishes are also quite endangered and even though they're farmed in aquacultures these days, these depend on wild-caught glass eels as far as I understand.