A Slimy Success Story

Scientists find shockingly good news about eels in PA river

“We’re not going five or 10 feet without catching an eel now,” said Joshua Newhard, a fisheries biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Maryland Fisheries Resource Office.

That wouldn’t have been the case just a few years ago. Eels had essentially vanished from the Susquehanna after the construction of large hydroelectric dams downstream in the early decades of the 20th century.

But four years ago, biologists began stocking this Susquehanna tributary in Union County with eels whose migration up the river was halted at Conowingo Dam, as well as with eels collected near Ocean City, MD.

Roughly 100,000 eels had been stocked in the creek prior to the mid-August electro-shocking survey, and another load of 25,000 was due the next day.

Source

There's also an interesting side story about how having eels is also restoring a freshwater mussel, the Elliptio, which uses eels as a host for their larval stage.

Getting eel numbers back up in the Bay would be a significant step in the restoration of fisheries.  Eels are, or were, important food for bay fish, as their young traversed it on the way from their hatching areas in the Sargasso Sea to their ultimate freshwater habitats and back.  Historically, eels were considered the best bait for big stripers.

However, as good as it is to see a stocking success like this, I don't know how viable this is as a restoration strategy on a wide scale.  How many of those eels will make it down the river, past Conowingo Dam and out into the sea to spawn.  Are these "put and take" eels?