The story of why eels went from being the most commonly consumed fish in a lot of places to where we have never eaten an eel. The one place where eel eating stade really, really popular was japan. Aristocratic ancient roman villas sometimes had an eel pond in the garden just to supply their endless feasts. We pretty much destroyed eel habitat dams and rivers,. prevented them from migrating and literally killed them. And then we drained marshes that also destroyed eel homes. Plus we polluted waterways. All of this has been a huge problem for eels.