Huh, things we did not know until today? Though they are born in the Atlantic Ocean (in the Sargasso Sea by Bermuda) the anguilla rostrata, or the American Eel, spend their lives in fresh water rivers and streams before going back south to spawn and die. Right now the tiny, translucent baby eels are making their way North, and for the first time they are being counted in a major metropolitan area (counts up and down the Hudson have been happening for a few years now). In this case, on Staten Island. And the number of eels this year is quite high!
"DEP is thrilled that the counts indicate high numbers of young American eels looking for a home in the Staten Island Bluebelt," Dana Gumb, Chief of the New York City Department of Environmental Protection's Staten Island Bluebelt Unit said in a statement. "For many years, the city has been investing hundreds of millions of dollars in building the award winning Bluebelt system to create a greener, greater New York. The fact that eels are thriving here shows that all our efforts have paid off."
So how good are the counts? "In 2011 at Black Creek in Ulster County, eels did not show significant numbers until early May and about 1,000 were caught throughout the eight-week season. However, on March 23 of this year, Scenic Hudson staff and volunteers counted more than 2,700 baby eels from a single night's migration."
So what does that mean? Well, "you talk about how the environment is interconnected. The eels live that interconnectedness," explained Chris Bowser, science education specialist for the state Department of Environmental Conservation (seen talking about the project in 2010, below). "You can find them in an urban creek, and you can find them in a rural creek. If we conserve eels, that means we're conserving so much more than eels."
A few more fun things we learned about eels today? Beyond the whole 1,500 mile trip to spawn and die, they can live up to 20 years and reach 4' in length. And! Cooked properly they taste quite good. Which explains why the DEP doesn't want to reveal the exact location of the trap they use in Staten Island to do their counting: poachers.
