Saving the American Eel

Biologists in Canada are taking extreme measures to prevent
the disappearance of a mysterious fish. For the first time ever, they’ve stocked one of the Great Lakes with American eels. David Sommerstein reports:

Transcript

Biologists in Canada are taking extreme measures to prevent the disappearance of a mysterious fish. For the first time ever, they’ve stocked one of the Great Lakes with American eels. David Sommerstein reports:


Eels spawn in the Sargasso Sea. They swim thousands of miles up the Atlantic Coast, up the St. Lawrence River, and into Lake Ontario.


Once the most populous fish in the lake, eel numbers have been plummeting since the 1980s. In a desperate move, the province of Ontario captured 144,000 baby eels from the Atlantic, nursed them, and then released them into Lake Ontario to see if they’ll live.


“It’s a grand experiment. What we need to do urgently is get eels back into the system.”


Rob McGregor is with Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources. He says Lake Ontario eels are among the biggest and most productive of the species in North America.


“Losing them is a big concern.”


McGregor says it’ll take a decade or more before he knows if the eels reproduce and the experiment can be declared a success.


For The Environment Report, I’m David Sommerstein.

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