✉︎ info@anguillalight.com
AnguillaLight
Guiding eel with light.
Tunable light systems for guiding the European eel (Anguilla anguilla) safely past dams, pumping stations, and hydropower intakes.
The Problem
The European eel is critically endangered. Since the 1980s, recruitment has declined by more than 90% in many parts of its range.
Every year, silver eel migrating downstream to the sea are killed in turbines, pumps, and sluices. Physical passages, screens, and traps exist — but they are expensive, high-maintenance, and incomplete. At large hydropower intakes, debris and flow make fine screens impossible.
The eel does not need another passage. It needs to be guided.
What the Science Shows
Peer-reviewed research has established two facts.
Silver eel avoid light. In controlled experiments, eel were significantly less likely to select an illuminated route, and more likely to reject it at higher light intensities. Blue (480 nm) and white light elicit the strongest avoidance.
Eel respond to light at real dams. A management-scale field study at the Iroquois Water Control Dam on the St. Lawrence River — the largest of its kind — confirmed that eel exposed to light slow down, dive deeper, and alter their swimming behaviour. The effect was strongest within 25 metres of the light array, with detectable influence to 51 metres.
The mechanism works. Our work is to make it reliable, tunable, and site-specific.
Our Approach
AnguillaLight manufactures turnkey permanent and mobile light systems that change eel behaviour at dams, pumping stations, and hydropower intakes. Our systems can be powered by solar, and we install, commission, and maintain them on site.
We are honest about what the science shows — and what it does not yet show. No single configuration works everywhere. That is why our systems are tunable and calibrated per site.
We also advise organisations, waterboards, hydropower operators, and anyone committed to helping the eel reach the ocean — and return to its breeding grounds — safely past any obstacle.
Our systems are designed for eel species in Europe, North America, and Australia.
What We Do
We handle the full process:
- Manufacture — turnkey permanent and mobile light systems
- Install — on site, retrofitted to existing infrastructure
- Commission — calibrated and tested per location
- Maintain — monitoring, tuning, and service
- Advise — waterboards, hydropower operators, and research partners
Why It Matters
The European eel is one of the most imperilled freshwater fishes on the planet. Every silver eel lost at a turbine is a lost generation — eel spawn once, at the end of their lives.
Light-based guidance offers what physical barriers cannot: a smaller footprint, lower maintenance, no impact on generating capacity, and adaptability to sites where screens are impossible.
The Evidence
Our approach is built on peer-reviewed science:
- Vowles, A.S. & Kemp, P.S. (2021). Artificial light at night (ALAN) affects the downstream movement behaviour of the critically endangered European eel, Anguilla anguilla. Environmental Pollution, 274, 116476.
Read the paper →
- MacLeod, M.E.C. (2024). Characterizing American Eel Out-Migration and their Vertical Movement Responses to an LED Behavioural Guidance Device. MSc thesis, Carleton University.
Download the thesis (PDF) →
Source: MacLeod, M.E.C. (2024), Carleton University. © Michael Edward Cole MacLeod. Used for reference and citation. All rights remain with the author.
- MacLeod, M.E.C., Pratt, T.C., Elvidge, C.K., & Cooke, S.J. Reviewing the Potential for Behavioural Guidance to Improve Downstream Passage of Out-Migrating Anguillid Eels. (In submission, River Research and Applications.)
Contact
For research partnerships, pilot projects, or general questions:
Contact us →
Email: info@anguillalight.com
AnguillaLight — Guiding eel with light.