All along the Hudson River estuary, students, volunteers, and scientists are counting juvenile eels for the Hudson River Eel Project. Juvenile American eels (Anguilla rostrata) are hatched in the Sargasso Sea north of Puerto Rico, and every spring they arrive in estuaries like the Hudson River as translucent, two-inch long “glass eels.”
This spring, eels are being counted at 12 stream sites along the Hudson River from New York Harbor to the Poestenkill in Troy. Trained volunteers don waders and venture into tributary streams to check 10-foot cone-shaped nets (“fyke nets”) specifically designed to catch this small life-stage of the eel. The eels are gently counted, taken from the net, and placed in a bucket of stream water before being released. Most of the eels are released above dams, waterfalls, and other barriers to their migration, so that they have better access to habitat. Eels will live in freshwater rivers and streams for up to 30 years before returning to the sea to spawn.
To volunteer at a site, email eelproject@dec.ny.gov.
