MID-HUDSON – The 17th year of annual research on migrating juvenile American eels is underway along the Hudson River Estuary.
Each year the Hudson River Eel Project connects students and local residents with nature, serving as environmental stewards gathering valuable data for the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s future study of this species and its role in the ecosystem, officials said.
This spring, students, local volunteers, DEC staff, and partner organizations monitor glass eels at 11 sites on the Hudson River from New York Harbor to the Capital Region.
American eels have one of the most unusual life cycles of any fish. They are hatched in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean and arrive every spring in estuaries like the Hudson River as translucent, two-inch long “glass eels.”
DEC and volunteers check 10-foot, cone-shaped nets specifically designed to catch these small eels during this life stage. Volunteer and student researchers then count and release them back into the water and record environmental data on temperature and tides.
Most of the eels are released above dames, waterfalls, and other barriers so that they have better access to habitat.
