The traditional trap is cyclindrical and has a double chamber to lure E.T. Sawyer displays a bit of history — a boat and square trap 

 and capture eels. distributed by a federal program in the 1970s. 



able," says William L. Rickards, former 

 assistant director of North Carolina Sea 

 Grant and principal investigator of the eel 

 culture project. 



The Sea Grant demonstration project 

 was a success, by any measure. But by 

 1980, the surge in eel farming had "died a 

 natural death due to lack of interest," says 

 Rickards, now director of Virginia Sea 

 Grant. "It could be that once the federal 

 money dried up, so did the interest in 

 pursuing the fishery." 



For at least the past decade, for reasons 

 most scientists have not yet pinpointed, eel 

 stocks have been declining. 



Rickards points out, "A number of 

 states are beginning to pay more attention to 

 eel stocks. It seems to be back on a lot of 

 states' lists for stock surveys." 



He believes that a number of things 

 could account for apparent low stocks, 

 including natural predators, overfishing, 

 habitat loss, pollution of both fresh and 

 brackish water environments — and the 

 natural cycle of abundance. "I think we may 

 be at the low point of a seven-to-ten year 

 abundance cycle," Rickards says. 



A LONG WAY FROM HOME 



Eel stocks appear to be at historic lows in 

 both America and Europe. But consider the 

 hazards encountered by the American eel 

 (Anguilla rostrata) and the European eel 

 (Anguilla anguilla) as they journey more than 

 a thousand miles from the Sargasso Sea in the 

 middle of the Atlantic Ocean. There, they 

 begin — and eventually end — their life cycle. 



Bom at sea, the catadramous eel drifts 

 toward land as larvae on ocean currents. It 

 spends most of its life in freshwater, reaching 

 maturity in seven to 30 years. The adult eel 

 returns to the mother waters of the Sargasso, 

 spawns and dies. 



So, between life and death, the eel can fall 

 victim to a number of dangers of natural or 

 human origin, as Rickards suggests. Some 

 North Carolina researchers and commercial 

 eelers would add one more nemesis to 

 Rickards' list. Nematodes. 



The nematode, a parasite that attacks the 

 swim bladder of eels, has been detected in both 

 the American and European eel. It's believed 

 to have been introduced from ballast water of 

 Asian ships or Asian aquaculture transplants. 



Juvenile nematodes are no larger than a 

 speck of lint; the adult, about one-half inch. In 



spite of the miniscule size, the nematode may 

 have decimated Asian eel stocks more than a 

 decade ago. 



Last year, researchers concluded a two- 

 year study to determine the extent of the 

 nematode infestation in North Carolina waters. 



Wesley Patrick, now a graduate student 

 in marine biology at East Carolina University, 

 gathered eels from 15 sites in the state, looking 

 for the presence of the parasite and its effect 

 on the eel. 



The study was supported by the North 

 Carolina Fisheries Resource Grant Program, 

 which is funded by the N.C. General 

 Assembly and administered by Sea Grant. 



With the help of Robert Hutchinson, a 

 commercial eeler from Chocowinity, the 

 research team collected more than 1,000 eels 

 from rivers and streams from the Cape Fear to 

 the Chowan rivers. 



Patrick reports an overall infection rate of 

 52 percent — higher than the rates in the 

 Chesapeake Bay or the Hudson River. He 

 speculates that higher rates may be related to 

 warmer waters, which support the hatch rate 

 of parasite eggs. Nematode eggs are released 

 into the water, and ingested by an intermediate 

 crustacean host. The eel ingests the crustacean 



14 SUMMER 2001 



