NYSDEC Eels!

All along the Hudson River Estuary, volunteers are counting juvenile eels for the NYSDEC HRE Hudson River Eel Project. Juvenile American eels (Anguilla rostrata) are hatched in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, 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 11 sites on the Hudson River from New York Harbor to the Capital Region, including the Beczak Center in Yonkers. Volunteers wade into tributary streams to check cone-shaped nets designed to catch these small life-stage eels. Researchers count and release eels back into the water and record data on temperature and tides. Most eels are released above dams, waterfalls, and other barriers, so 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.

Eel collection takes place at most sites daily from early April through mid-May. Since the project began, volunteers have caught, counted, and released more than one million juvenile eels into upstream habitat.