The reasons for the alarming decline of the European eel, Anguilla anguilla L., population are unknown. Conservation action is nevertheless needed, and is also demanded by European legislation. To understand fisheries stakeholders’ preferences for various eel conservation tools and thereby inform eel conservation planning, an innovative survey method, the maximum difference conjoint, was applied to recreational anglers in northern Germany. Results were used to develop a decision support tool to predict stakeholders’ support for eel conservation policies. Recreational anglers preferred moderately more restrictive eel harvest regulations but strongly opposed any form of effort and gear limitation. They strongly favoured tighter constraints on other sources of eel mortality (e.g. commercial fishing, cormorants, hydropower) along with increased stocking efforts compared to increased regulation of recreational eel angling. Overall, however, anglers were supportive of management portfolios that included regulations of recreational fishing along with regulations of other eel mortality sources provided some success in terms of increased eel escapement was guaranteed. This result was unexpected given the pronounced aversion towards tighter eel angling regulations highlighting the suitability of our nested survey approach to understand stakeholder trade-offs for complex resource conservation problems. Our results suggest that implementation of successful eel conservation policies must consider joint regulation of all sectors that potentially affect eel stocks negatively. Otherwise, management conflicts are very likely. The application of the social survey technique presented in this paper is encouraged to other fisheries conservation contexts, where biological reasons for declining resources are uncertain and multiple stakeholder interests must be considered.
