Eel monitors Srinivas and Bill.

Keen conservationists at Monmouth School Boys’ Prep have released more than 1,000 elvers into the River Wye as part of a sustainability project.

The pupils from Prep II looked after the elvers, fed and watched them grow in a tank in the school library before sending them back into the river on Tuesday 12th June.

Pupils released the elvers from the steps of Monmouth School for Boys’ Rowing Club and from a boat in the middle of the river.

Severn & Wye Smokery Ltd run the Eels in Schools project and the boys even had an opportunity to eat cooked samples of the ray-finned fish.

“This project is great for conservation,” said pupil, Srinivas, who was a school eel monitor along with his class-mate, Bill.

“We learned that eels face problems reaching rivers and wetlands and some species of eel head out to sea and across the Atlantic to the Sargasso Sea to breed.

“Eels like warm water and it was quite cold when we released them into the River Wye so they did a lot of wriggling around in the water.”

Dr Sion Wall, Science and Technology co-ordinator at Monmouth School Boys’ Prep, said: “This has been a fantastic project, in conjunction with Severn Wye Smokery, to teach the boys about sustainability.

“The boys saw the eels grow in front of them at the school before releasing them, and many more eels, into the River Wye.

“It has been a hands-on way for the boys to learn and to understand that to carry on eating things we must make sure we restock them too.”