Come Get the Feel for Eels: The Hudson River Eel Project in the Blind Brook
Written by Jack Meyers, Environmental Educator
For anyone who frequents a morning stroll along the Blind Brook, you may have noticed a new unnatural feature at the Nature Center. What you are looking at is a fyke net, pictured below, and it is part of one of Rye Nature Center’s most valued Citizen Science projects: The Hudson River Eel Project, a study that our team has been participating in since 2017.
Jax and Steven getting ready for the eels!
Of all the Rye Nature Center’s ongoing conservation projects, eel monitoring is the most tangible and literally connects us to a larger system of fellow stewards of all things wild within the Hudson River Watershed.
If you are not aware, the migration and life of the American Eel is still largely a mystery to conservationists, ecologists, and interested parties alike. Unlike most other aquatic species who choose to spawn in the safety of a river or stream and then travel back to the ocean — these are referred to as anadromous fish — the American Eel mate and lay their eggs out in the ocean — referred to as catadromous fish. Upon hatching countless eel young, or glass eels, return to fresh water to live the majority of their lives.
What is the Rye Nature Center’s role in uncovering this mystery? We are the primary weigh station for all eels traveling up the Blind Brook from the Long Island Sound. This process involves using the above-mentioned fyke net to catch most of the eels passing by on their swim upstream.
Getting this net ready is a labor of love!
Once the net has been set, our conservation team and volunteers venture down to the brook each day to check out and release our net’s new slippery squad of eels. After carefully removing all the eels from the holding chamber (designed to comfortably hold hundreds of eels), our conservation team will take various measurements. These include weighing the eels 20 at a time, a total count of the eels, their stage in development, as well as temperature and tide observations of the brook.
A mix of elver and glass eels fresh from the net!
Eel Dump!
Our past Eels Stats
Good luck counting all of these!
This process will be repeated daily from the date of first installation (this year we installed early on February 20, 2025) up until eel numbers have zeroed out. Through our monitoring, we are able to contribute data to help track some important factors. To name a few, the time of migration, their health while migrating, as well as the stage in their morphology.
Our Eel life cycle display can be found doubling as a step stool for our museum’s sinks!
While project ownership has passed hands several times throughout our years of participation, it is currently championed by our Director of Conservation, Jaxson Mack (with ample help from his trusty partner-in-slime Steven Koester). We were able to catch up with Jax and Steven to ask them the questions we’ve all been wondering:
What do you feel are some of the most important parts of our participation in the Hudson River Eel Project?
Jax: The American Eel is considered an imperiled species, so the data we pull can help infer the health of their habitats at large. Meaning, whether clean-ups and further care is required, but also if our efforts are having a positive effect. We also have become a training site for the project. So, anyone south of Hudson River can come to us to learn how to take data and how to join the citizen science project themselves.
What are aspects of the project do you enjoy the most?
Jax: When it comes to the small scale: Holding the eels, especially on the day of a big catch. Watching them swim away after we release them also brings me a lot of joy. They scurry right into the ground to hide. Fun fact! They can crawl on the ground rather impressively, so much so that they can climb around our fence. I’ve heard of eels climbing up a small damn in Croton. Of course, I cannot overstate the importance of learning about these wonderful critters in the interest of protecting their population.
Steven: I really enjoy the whole process of gathering all the eels from inside the net and then counting them all to get that final tally.
Will you describe the feel of an eel for me?
Jax: When it comes to Glass Eels, I'd say they’re like worms, but with slime on them. A little more rigid. Think a mucousy and wriggly pile of noodles.
Steven: Slimy.
Anyone who has handled a heaping handful of eels can surely agree with that! And if you are the kind of person who wants to get in on the feeling of eeling, please do not hesitate to contact jax@ryenaturecenter.org. We are always looking for volunteers to join us in the brook to lend a hand caring for and counting our little friends who do not have them!
“The eels and I will see you down by the brook!”