Keeping eyes on eels: Wildlife experts set up tank at Easthampton elementary for students to observe mysterious species

Cody Pilachowski, a student at Mountain View School, looks at bugs the  American eels would eat during a presentation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as part of a eels in the classroom project. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year.

Cody Pilachowski, a student at Mountain View School, looks at bugs the American eels would eat during a presentation by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service as part of a eels in the classroom project. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Felix Van Gelovan and Ryder Canon-Smith look at American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of an eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year.

Felix Van Gelovan and Ryder Canon-Smith look at American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of an eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year. STAFF PHOTOS/CAROL LOLLIS

Olivia Rudolph Lexington and  Coraline Blackburn, students at Mountain View Elementary School in Easthampton, watch as American eels get fed  during a presentation by the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service as part of an eels in the classroom project. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year.

Olivia Rudolph Lexington and Coraline Blackburn, students at Mountain View Elementary School in Easthampton, watch as American eels get fed during a presentation by the U.S Fish & Wildlife Service as part of an eels in the classroom project. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

 American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of an eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of an eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Logan Tourigny looks at the American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of an eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year.

Logan Tourigny looks at the American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of an eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Quintin Gebo, middle in orange,  looks at the American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of a eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year.

Quintin Gebo, middle in orange, looks at the American eels brought to Mountain View School in Easthampton as part of a eels in the classroom project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

Cathy Bozek, with the Fish and Aquatic Conservation program within  the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, talks to a group of Mountain View Elementary students about where the eels come from and their size during a presentation last month. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year.

Cathy Bozek, with the Fish and Aquatic Conservation program within the U.S Fish and Wildlife Service, talks to a group of Mountain View Elementary students about where the eels come from and their size during a presentation last month. The eels will be on display at the school through the end of the school year. STAFF PHOTO/CAROL LOLLIS

By SAMUEL GELINAS

Staff Writer

Published: 01-02-2025 3:48 PM

Modified: 01-04-2025 11:15 AM


EASTHAMPTON — Several mysteries surround American eels, a species that spends a portion of its life in Massachusetts. For example, no one has ever observed the species spawn, and only one has ever been tracked in the wild.

Students at Easthampton’s Mountain View School, however, are getting a front row seat to this mysterious species as they monitor 20 American eels until the end of the school year in a tank provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). Just before students left for holiday break last month, FWS representatives set up the tank in a spot that all students can access. They also led a talk about the species’ impact in the region, as well as the ways the agency uses resources to protect the eels from dams and other hydro-powered technologies that threaten them.

Jennifer Lapis, who works in visitor services at the Silvio O. Conte Wildlife and Fish Reservation, explained to students that while here in the Connecticut River, American eels fulfill a critical function in the food web by transporting freshwater mussels. The mussels themselves are key members in the ecology of the river, working as “filter feeders” by reducing algae in the water, which in turn leads to less oxygen depletion in the ecosystem, she explained.

During a microscopic stage of their life, the mussels latch onto the gills of the American eel.

While latched to the eel’s gill, “The eel makes its way upstream, and when the mussels get to a certain size they’ll fall off,” Lapis told students. “And that’s how the mussels distribute themselves throughout the Connecticut River. This process, she concluded, helps keep the river clean of toxins.

Students Reilly Keefe and Katana Kim said they thought it was “really cool” that they were learning about and observing the eels. Keefe said that she learned that the eels “grow to become big, that they like to eat bugs in the wild, and how they get over the dams,” while Kim thought the mussels and their reliance on the American eel to be interesting.

Wildlife experts explained to students that the American eel has been restricted by the presence of dams and hydro-powered machinery, which are killing off the American eel population, as are the impacts of pollution and climate change. Jessica Pica, a fish passage engineer with the FWS, said that the eel population has dropped in recent years because of these challenges.

She explained to students how the FWS works to keep water “safe, clean, and healthy so they have somewhere they can live,” and showed pictures of specialized structures, ramps and ladders that assist migratory species, including American shad, sturgeon, and lamprey, travel over human-made obstacles like dams.

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The majority of the eel’s life is spent as a yellow eel — its fourth stage of development. It is in this stage of their life cycle as “young adults” that they are at the school, and how they are typically found locally since at this stage they inhabit local rivers and other freshwater bodies of water.

The eels in the classroom were harvested at Holyoke’s Robert E. Barrett Fishway, and they will not undergo any physiological changes in the upcoming months before they are released into the Connecticut River.

It is also at this yellow eel stage that the American eel develops its gonads, which are formed due to social conditioning and circumstance. Jesus Morales, fish passage engineer, explained that eels raised in higher densities tend to develop into males, while those that are raised in more solitary environments tend to develop female reproductive organs. The females also grow to be slightly larger than males, and reach up to 4 feet long. Both sexes are aggressive and territorial, and watching the tank the approximately 20 eels can be seen jabbing at each other.

The species gives birth thousands of miles from the shore, laying as many as 3 million eggs in the Sargasso Sea in the north Atlantic Ocean. Yet it remains unknown how many of these eggs develop to adulthood, or how they make the trek, he said. In their earliest stages the eels are a translucent cell that then floats hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles and lands on the East Coast, anywhere as far north as Canada and Greenland and as far south as Venezuela, to inhabit freshwater bodies including ponds and streams.

After inhabiting freshwater for 15-30 years of its life, it returns to the Sargasso to live out its last phase.

This return to saltwater occurs after the eel has undergone a midlife metamorphosis in which it stops eating, turns silver and develops bigger eyes — another mystery surrounding the eel, said Morales, since it is unknown what prompts the changes to occur. However, these transformations assist the eels in adapting to a salt water environment: the silver allows them to camouflage better in the ocean, and bigger eyes to help with sight in darker and denser aquatic conditions.

The eels were provided courtesy of the U.S. Wildlife Service at no cost to the school.

Samuel Gelinas can be reached at sgelinas@gazettenet.com.