Why Eels, Why Now?

Annual eel release into the Susquehanna River, 2024.

Dan Rhodes, Education Coordinator, BCCD
Over the past year, while doing educational programming around Bradford County and even up into southern NY for a special assignment, I’ve been running into Susquehanna River fishing enthusiasts all over the place asking me the same question; ‘‘I’ve been fishing this river for 40 years and never seen or caught an American eel…until now! Why eels…why now?”. Multiple anglers would go on to explain that while fishing usually at night for catfish or other sportfish over the past few months, they would very surprisingly reel in large 2’-3’ American eels. “Where are they coming from and what has changed?” they would always ask. 

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The answer to this question is simple. Over the past 20 years, through a joint eel transfer effort by USFW and SRBC, roughly 1.5 million small 4”-6” American eel elvers trapped below the Conowingo dam in Maryland have been transported north in tanks and stocked within their historically native waters all along the Susquehanna River and its’ tributaries. Many of these originally stocked fish are what is being caught in the river today. Unlike many other short-lived sportfish, American eels are a notoriously long-lived fish with sub-adults and eventually mature adults living sometimes decades beyond this early life stage in their traditional freshwater habitats. Eventually, as American eels morph through six different life cycle phases, they reach their final, fully mature form that’s ready to migrate thousands of miles back to the Atlantic Ocean to spawn before dying. It is man-made obstructions in these waterways that have functionally cut off the eel from its’ traditional habitat and make migration back to the ocean a similarly difficult and dangerous proposition.

As an angler or member of the general-public, you might be thinking and wondering that although it’s kind of interesting to be able to catch a snake-like fish in the river once again after it’s been absent for several decades, what is all the fuss to bring this one species back?  You see, American eels are what is known as a keystone species. A keystone species is any species of wildlife or plant-life that is essential to the existence of an entire natural community of other species. Without the ‘keystone’ species present, the entire ecosystem changes into something else. Through a wildly unexpected relationship, American eels provide themselves as a specifically needed host for freshwater mussels to reproduce and spread their population. Without the eels, the mussels disappear. Without the mussels we lose a massively powerful natural water filtration system in the mussels, and our water gets dirtier. Dirty water means the loss of many other species of fish that need clean water, and it means higher costs to treat and clean the water we need every day as humans.

But if American eels are so rare and important, and if every eel you find in the river today had to be trucked up from Maryland to exist in the river, why do fishing regulations in NY and PA allow anglers to catch and possess so many? Unfortunately, American eels are secretive and hard to count. To determine the overall status of a migratory fish, USFWS generally counts the spawning adults in a species and compares that number to past years. Even now though, scientists have not physically found the exact spawning location of adult American eels in the Atlantic. For this reason, and for the time being, changing the status of the American eel to threatened or endangered is going to be difficult. Despite these challenges however, there is significant evidence to support the conclusion that American eels are a highly threatened species, and it is hoped that more research can be done to confirm the very negative overall population trends of this super important fish.

Until then, we here at BCCD hope to spread the word about this often poorly understood but highly critical native fish species through this column, through social media and through a new educational program called Eels in the Classroom. Eels in the Classroom is an interdisciplinary educational experience for grade levels K-12 where students receive an aquarium, free educational curriculum, and roughly 8-10 live American eel elvers to raise and learn from. At the end of the school year, every participating classroom brings their students to an educational eel stocking event along the Susquehanna River highlighting topics such as water conservation, historical use of natural resources, and biological diversity of the Susquehanna River. Interactive learning stations are set up and facilitated by a variety of partner organizations such as PFBC, DCNR, Penn State Cooperative Extension, Audubon Society, Friends of the Chemung River Watershed, Bradford County Historical Society, and SRBC.

BCCD is also very excited to announce that through the very generous support of our sponsor at Repsol, we now have the financial capability to maintain the existing 10 participating EIC classrooms across 8 school districts across Bradford County with the potential to expand the program to others. We look forward to working with Repsol and our many school/teacher partnerships across the county for years to come!           

The Bradford County Conservation District is committed to helping people manage resources wisely.  You can visit the Bradford County Conservation District at 200 Lake Rd in Wysox across from the Wysox Fire Hall. Contact us at (570) 485-3144 or visit our web page at www.bccdpa.com.