Newsletter December 2022

The year 2022

2022 was a good year for Glasaal Volendam BV. Our biologists team succeeded in breeding larvae of the European eel through almost to the willow leaf stage, a unique achievement. Management Board and Supervisory Board of Glasaal Volendam BV wish all shareholders, certificate holders and sympathizers a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year, thanking them for their continued support of our risky operation and trusting that we will succeed in completing the breeding of glass eel.

Nico M. van Straalen, chairman of the board

New staff member

As of October 1 of this year, we hired a fifth staff member, Dinis Tomé Cardoso. He holds the position of aquaculture assistant. He is responsible for water quality control, eel maturation, disinfection, feeding the larvae and keeping the tanks clean, in short, all daily operations in the breeding facility. Dinis has completed his probationary period; he now has a one-year contract.

How does he look back on the past learning period? "Small victories every day" he says. "I learned something new every day and now I master all the work." Dinis fits well into the team and takes a lot of work off the biologists' hands. Indeed, larval rearing is very labor-intensive, as feeding often proves to be very important. The biologists work continuously, from early in the morning to late at night and also on weekends. This can only be sustained if you have enough hands and we have that now. A native of Portugal, Dinis studied at a well-known marine research institute, the University of Leiria in Peniche, a major fishing port on the Atlantic coast. He previously worked for a marine aquarium in Tenerife.

The board decided to expand the staff by a fifth person to speed up the process of glass eel rearing. With Dinis added, we can conduct parallel trials with different feed types and treatments to achieve faster progression from leptocephalus to glass eel.