MasterChef to adjust its policy after conservationists protest over cooking endangered species.

BBC’s TV chefs attacked for putting eel on the menu.

The BBC is to change its policy on food served up on MasterChef after conservationists accused it of putting an endangered species on the menu.

Three chefs in a recent episode of MasterChef: The Professionals were told to prepare two dishes using smoked eel as the main ingredient. But critics said that the eel is endangered, and the programme sent the wrong signal on sustainability and could have stimulated demand for eel among viewers.

The European eel (Anguilla anguilla) is in dramatic decline, with numbers of young eels – known as elvers – down by as much as 99% since the 1980s. It is on the “red list” of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, classified as “critically endangered” – only one step from extinction in the wild.

Willie Mackenzie, of Greenpeace’s Oceans Campaign, said: “Serving up European eel on a popular television show like MasterChef is irresponsible – and likely to lead to even more demand for a species that is just as endangered as tigers or pandas.

“Eels are intrinsically linked with London, as a traditional dish, yet it is our overfishing of this species which has pushed it towards the brink of extinction – they are now internationally recognised as ‘critically endangered’. It’s about time people realised you can’t make entertainment out of creatures that are close to extinction.”

In the hugely popular BBC2 series, Michel Roux Jnr, chef-patron at the Michelin two-starred Le Gavroche restaurant, and vegetable expert Gregg Wallace oversee and judge the culinary skills of ambitious young chefs.

Contestants are presented with ingredients and told to prepare particular dishes – both modern and classic – within a time limit. Their efforts are then assessed by the two experts and the winner progresses to the next round.

But the inclusion of eel has provoked a storm of protest. Eels only breed when they are mature adults of about nine years old, making their way from rivers, streams and lakes in northern Europe to their traditional spawning grounds. Elvers taken from the wild reduce the breeding stocks. Many restaurants feature eel on their menus, which they normally source from specialist farms. But even farmed eel is controversial.

Melissa Pritchard, fisheries policy officer at the Marine Conservation Society, said: “Stocks of eel are at an historic low and because of that, under the Cites convention on endangered species, trade is restricted. There should be a ban on the exploitation of eels. Even eel farms rely on taking juveniles from the wild. Eels cannot be bred in captivity – so farming is not sustainable. Programmes like this, where eels are cooked for entertainment, are just not on.”

Chris Dennison, a former general-secretary of the Eel Study Group set up to help conserve the species, said it was time for eels to “come off all menus”. He said: “Programmes like this make me cringe. We export about 250 tonnes of eel from the UK every year, and it takes about 3,500 individual eels to make a kilo of meat, so you can see the size of the problem we have.”

A BBC spokesman said: “We absolutely recognise the very important issue of sourcing sustainable ingredients and, in all our MasterChef programmes, we take a lot of time and make every effort to use locally sourced ingredients.

“The eel in question was used in a classic recipe test, and came from a farm in Northern Ireland run by priests who assured us it had come from a sustainable source. For future series, contestants will be required to consider the endangered fish list when submitting menus.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/nov/01/eels-on-tv-menu-protest