What Hudson River dwellers have been mistaken for river monsters?
Listen to the Tom Lake story and find out!
 This program is part of the River Voices Audio Adventure Tour. This sign is located at Historic Catskill Point in the City of Catsklill, NY.
Tom Lake is an estuary naturalist who works for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation's Hudson River Estuary Program. For seven years, Tom has been putting out fyke nets in Hunter's Brook, a tributary of Wappingers Creek and the Hudson River. Every day in March, April and May, Tom checks the nets for baby eels. When he finds them he measures them, notes their color, checks the water temperature and other data to help us understand why the American eel population is beginning to decline.
 Catching eels for research"We're at low tide now, and the net doesn't look like it would catch anything... but six hours from now, when the tide comes in, the floats will rise up to the top, and this net will open like a flower blossom, and at that point it will be able to catch eels swimming up stream."
"The fyke net has two, ten-foot wings that go out to the side and eels coming up stream are channeled through a series of funnels in the net until they get to a dead end and can't find their way out again."
 Did we catch anything?It is late in the season and Tom is surprised to find that not only are there three baby eels in the net, but each is at a different life stage.
 A glass eel"This is a glass eel... it is actually more translucent because you cannot see all the way through it. This is an eel that has probably been in the river about a month and has yet to acquire pigment."
 Like a piece of black thread
"The second one has probably been in the river for perhaps two months. It is undergoing a metamorphosis, a change from being translucent to having pigmentation."
 A miniature adult eel "It is green and yellow and a little over four inches long. It has all the characteristics of an adult eel. This eel has survived and has thousands of brothers and sisters that are probably right here in this stream." |
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