Evaluation of visible implant elastomer as a method for tagging small European eels

Abstract

Visible implant elastomer (VIE) tagging showed no significant effect on survival of either 230 single‐tagged or 60 multiple‐tagged small European eels Anguilla anguilla . Mean tag retention was 98·7% during the 5 month laboratory experiments. Multiple VIE tags had no observed effect on European eel locomotor behaviour. VIE appears a reliable method for individually tagging small European eels, and could be useful in capture–recapture field studies.