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Dormagen (dpa / lnw) - On the Rhine near Dormagen, about a hundred dead eels were washed ashore after the flood.

Environmentalists who wanted to clean the rubbish off the banks of the Rhine discovered the dead animals hanging in the sand and in the bushes.

According to the State Environment Agency on Thursday, there is no evidence of a disease or pollutant in the water that is responsible for the fish deaths.

Every year, smaller amounts of dead eels are found in various sections of the Rhine, which had previously apparently been damaged by ship propellers or engines from hydropower plants.

The city of Dormagen reported the find to the district government.

“The fact that the eels are being washed ashore right now also has something to do with the flood,” said the State Environment Agency.

The dead animals usually stay in the river bed, but the floods drove them to more distant bank areas.

The animals were found distributed over a length of about 500 meters.

Other media reported.

It was an "unusual phenomenon" that so many dead eels were washed ashore, said Stefan Saas, managing director of the Rhine fishing cooperative.

The animals may have frozen to death.

You would now be examined.

The eel is a problem child: Despite all the measures, the population remains very low.

We advise against eating eels from the Rhine: environmental toxins accumulate in its fatty meat.

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The State Environment Agency stated that the finds were a sign that more eels were again in the Rhine to migrate to the spawning grounds in the Saragossa Sea.

They are also a sign that the river is not yet open to migratory fish everywhere.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210217-99-481198 / 3

Rheincleanup Dormagen

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Migratory fish program NRW

Protection of the eel