Getting friendly with eels

A familiar shape to most people, the eel’s long, slender, snakelike body is hard to confuse with other fish. Small, embedded scales like those of burbot give eels a slippery feeling. American eels have both their dorsal and anal fins connected to the tail so they appear to have one continuous fin wrapped around the end of their bodies.

Migratory fish, eels are found from the ocean to the headwaters of many streams. They spend most of their time buried in the gravel and mud or hiding under rocks. Due to their snakelike way of moving, eels are able to bypass most barriers and have even been seen crossing lawns during heavy rains.

Eels are the only freshwater fish in New York State that are catadromous, meaning they migrate out to sea to spawn. It is not known exactly where and how they spawn, but the suspected spawning site is the Sargasso Sea. Spawning adults and eggs have never been found, and it is assumed the adults die after spawning.

During the first stages of life, eels have a larval form. The larvae are transparent ribbonlike creatures that drift with the current and take approximately one year to reach the New York State area. When they grow to be 2.5 inches long, larval eels then change into the classic eel shape. Now called glass eels, they are still transparent. As these glass eels near coastal rivers, they become colored and are called “elvers.” The three inch long elvers then begin the trip upstream with females moving far upstream, while males remain near the ocean. Eels usually spend ten years in freshwater before returning to the sea to spawn.

Eels are important commercial fish in New York State. Most are exported to Europe and Japan, where they are smoked, jellied, or cooked in olive oil and vinegar. Unfortunately, many of the prime fishing areas for eels have been closed due to high PCB levels.

Unusual Fish and People

The term unusual can mean many things when talking about New York State’s fish. It does not necessarily mean a fish is uncommon or odd in appearance. Fish that display unique behavior or are exotic (originally from another area) to the State may also be considered unusual elsewhere.

Many waters contain fish species that were not native nor the result of an authorized introduction or stocking. One common method for fish to be introduced is by people placing live fish or eggs into waters that may or may not already contain them. This may occur if aquarium fish outgrow their homes, when fishermen release their bait at the end of a day’s fishing, or when people intentionally introduce a new fish into a water.

While none of the these actions seem harmful, they can actually cause a lot of damage to the aquatic community of a water. Introduced fish can harm the local aquatic community in a number of unanticipated ways, including:

 disrupt or even destroy long-established feeding relationships

 compete with local fish species for food and space

 alter habitat (grass carp may eat vegetation that is important for another fish species spawning)

To avoid the possible harmful effects that introduced fish species can cause, there are a few simple rules you can follow: don’t stock waters with live fish unless you have a permit by DEC; don’t release baitfish into a water body at the end of a day’s fishing even if you doubt they will survive; and don’t use live baitfish in waters expressly forbidding this.

Scientific Names

Many species of fish look alike, making it difficult to tell them apart. In addition, many types of fish have different common names in different parts of the country. To distinguish one organism from another, biologists give each a scientific name that is unique to that organism. The names are derived from the Latin language and consist of a genus and a species. The genus name is first and is capitalized. The species is second and is in lower case. Both the genus and species are either underlined or italicized when written. While several organisms in the same “family” share a common genus name (like family members sharing a last name), they have different species names. Occasionally, two members of a family are so similar that one is considered a subspecies of the other. In these cases, the organisms are given two species names.

Reprinted courtesy of New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.