Tagging eel in the PUFFINS project

In November 2025, we tagged european eel for our RCN-funded project, PUFFINS. The aim of our work is to better understand how eels behave and use habitat, particularly in urban environments. The European eel is considered a threatened species both in Norway and by the European Union, yet its behavior and habitat use is understudied.

Due to an array of unfortunate delays, we were only able to begin our catch efforts in November. Catching eel in the fjord at this time of year proved more challenging than expected. Fortunately, we managed to catch eels in a small pond connected to the fjord via underground pipes. We know from earlier work that the small pond, Svanedammen (eng: “the swan pond”), may be densely populated with eels. With less than 200 meters separating the pond from the fjord, we are excited to investigate whether eels move between these habitats in the course of a year or not.

Our two BTN team members in Kristiansand have been tagging eels for the past two years, but it was a new experience for the BTN team located in Bergen. The eel’s unique physiology and remarkable ability to escape makes handling, anesthetizing, and monitoring recovery more challenging and time-consuming than many other species. We were fortunate enough to have colleagues with eel-tagging experience to guide us. A special thanks to Kurt Johansen, who took the time to visit us from Kristiansand and teach us how to tag eels!

This project is financed by the Norwegian Research Council project PUFFINS (Nr. 2749098).