The genus Anguilla appeared 70 million years during the Cretacean in the Indo-Pacific and expanded to nearly every ocean. In the second half of the twentieth century recruitment strength of glass-eel simultaneous fell sharply. While fishing mortality is an important anthropogenic factor, this activity cannot explain alone this sharp decline in abundance which is also due to the effects and impacts of a large number of others human uses on the loss of ecological continuity, on the loss of suitable habitats and decrease of the quality and productivity of marine, estuarine and continental aquatic ecosystems. The purpose of this article is to summarise some of the characteristics of populations belonging to the genus Anguilla and in particular to highlight recent findings about the conservation and ecology of tne European eel (Anguilla anguilla).