American Eel: Ambassador of the River Part 2

In this episode of 'Rarefied,' host Meredith Meeker continues a deep dive into the life and conservation of the American eel alongside guest Chris Bowser, an education coordinator for the NYSDEC Hudson River Estuary Program. The discussion covers practical ways to help protect eels, debunks myths about the species, and touches on the storied cultural significance of eels around the globe. From community science projects to personal anecdotes about eel encounters, listeners will find a renewed appreciation for this often misunderstood species. The episode also explains the concept of bioaccumulation and provides insights into how individuals can contribute to environmental conservation. Don't miss the rapid-fire questions where Chris shares fascinating and often quirky facts about eels. 00:00 Introduction: A Legacy in Nature 00:23 Welcome Back: The Adventure Continues 00:34 Deep Dive into the American Eel 00:44 Solutions and Myths about American Eels 01:02 Meet Chris Bowser: Eel Expert 01:42 How You Can Help: Community Science and Conservation 07:04 Eel Stories and Cultural Significance 12:00 Rapid Fire Questions: Fun Eel Facts 33:48 Scientific Concepts: Bioaccumulation 36:14 Conclusion: Protecting Our Planet's Rare Species 

https://academic.oup.com/fisheries/advance-article/doi/10.1093/fshmag/vuae029/8108272

Transcript

Theme Song 0:00

In every stream, in every tree, a story lives, a legacy. Let's listen close, let's take a stand, to keep the wild across the land. In every stream, in every tree, a story lives, a legacy.

Meredith 0:23

Welcome. You found us again and the adventure continues. This is rarefied, the podcast where we learn to love some of our rarest and most imperiled species. I'm your host Meredith Meer, and if you thought part one of our deep dive into the American eel was fascinating, just wait. Because today we're really gonna blow your mind. Okay. Last time we uncovered the incredible journey of this mysterious, magical, and yes mucusy creature, but now it's time to talk solutions. What can we do to help? What are the myths out there about American eels? And most importantly, what would an eel say if they had the stage at a TED Talk? To help us answer those questions, we are once again joined by the amazing Chris Bowser. Chris is the education coordinator for the N-Y-S-D-E-C Hudson River Estuary Program and the Hudson River Research Reserve in partnership with the Water Resource Institute for Cannell University. He also teaches the environmental science at Mars College and has previously worked with the United States Peace Corps and the Hudson River SLU Clearwater. So let's dive back in and pick up where we left off, because trust me, you're gonna wanna hear this. I think we've covered like a lot of the threats, but what people can do to help. I feel like this is a good segue. Is it like, is there Marine certifications, like, you know, there's a lot of seafood certifications for sustainable seafood. Is that something. That people, is it, does it already exist for eels? Is it something people should be lobbying for? Or it's also tricky because like you said, a lot of people in North America, at least on where I'm from, it's going to be in a restaurant likely where you're eating it. So it's hard to, you know, unless it's on the menu.

Bowser 2:20

yeah, they're, I don't know of a certification specifically for eels, but they're are quite a few certifications like seafood watch and stuff like that for, for seafood. I have, I have been that guy, that annoying guy in a restaurant that has said, excuse me, can you find out where this fish comes from? Or excuse me, can you, can, can I see the packet that this eel came from? I have been that guy. And just because I'm curious and I want people to know I'm curious just to, just to keep that conversation going, Hey, where did this eel come from? I want to know. Cause I think there, you know, there's, there's. There's a wide variety. I think that things that, things that people can do is, is, is going to sound really like I wanted something more interesting than this, but, here's the deal. Eels are found everywhere, anything you do to help your environment is also helping eels, and it's helping eels everywhere! Because an eel that, an adult eel that leaves the Hudson River and lays its eggs, Her babies may end up in Venezuela or Mexico or Georgia or Virginia or Maine or Labrador, you know, or Ontario. So

Meredith 3:29

Okay.

Bowser 3:29

are They are mixing and matching everywhere. So, all of the things, the recycling more, the consuming less, the thinking about renewable energies, all of those things that feel like, oh my god, we've been hearing these lessons forever. Well, yeah, that's because they work. It's sort of like with personal exercise. We all want to glom onto a diet and an exercise regime, but really, we all know, right? Like, watching what we eat and exercising more is what it comes down to. It's the same thing with eels. care of your environment, making good choices, consuming less, just producing less waste, and getting outside more, all of these things help eels. If you happen to live somewhere that has a community science project, it could be the eel project here in the Hudson Valley, but it could be something else that's looking at, like, weather conditions or water quality or, or other species of birds and insects and anything else. involved in those. Get involved in science. Start to learn, you know, increase your own scientific literacy so you can understand, you know, hey, this is what's, this is what's going on. I think, I think when I think about the EEL project yes, it's been great that we've been able to collect data and we have this great partnership with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission. But honestly, it's also been a huge success in the hundreds or thousands of years. thousands of people that have put on those rubber pants that have gone out into the water and that have like had this positive connection with their neighborhood, their stream, their friends and their eels. And like that community science piece is absolutely as big a success as any of the, the, the data science parts that we've been able to accomplish. So I think however way you interact with the environment, keep interacting with that environment or find new ways to keep doing it.

Meredith 5:27

And if you don't have an eel, community science project near you. There's also, I mean, in the States, it's still Tread Unlimited. Here it's Freshwater Conservation Canada, and they do a lot of dam removal or they advocate for a lot of dam removal.

Bowser 5:43

Mm

Meredith 5:43

there might be a project in your area that might help the, you know, a little more directly if you're like, Oh, I want to feel like I'm having more of an immediate impact than, you know, waiting for that weight loss of good diet and recycling.

Bowser 5:57

understand. I get it. I get it.

Meredith 5:59

Yeah.

Bowser 6:02

Yes, there are. And wherever you are, there are going to be ways that you can interact more with the environment, you know, wherever your listener finds themselves, I'm sure. that there's something nearby that they can, they can find their way towards. If, and by the way, if you happen to be in New York, check out the, the Department of Environmental Conservation's website, basically DEC. gov. And you'll, I'm sure you can go on a lot of journeys between, you know, fisheries and hiking outside and getting involved in water quality. There's a lot of cool, cool access ways. Mmm.

Meredith 6:42

you know, on the Eastern side of the continent, like, and well, really North America, we're really blessed with our rivers and how many rivers we have. And nobody is far from a river here. So.

Bowser 6:54

is so true. I'm, I'm blessed all, I'm thankful every single day for the rivers that we have. Oh, you are correct, Meredith.

Meredith 7:04

And you've talked quite a bit about the Community Science Project. You've been able to, I'm guessing you still get out to help train or to be with the community scientists or, or your community members. Do you have any favorite or like a really fun memory that like keeps you going in between field seasons?

Bowser 7:24

I absolutely, so yes, I get out all the time and, and, and I, and I, and I try really hard to like get all of my administrative stuff done nine months out of the year so that for three months out of the year, I can get out and do as much healing as I can. It like right now for the next three months is like eel central. I also, I'm a, I'm just a nerd. I don't care. I love eels there. I've said it. And I don't even go on regular vacations anymore. I don't go on vacation to vacation. I like go on vacation. I'm like, okay. What eel species can I see now? Hmm, let's see. So, so I, you know, you're asking me about what keeps me going. I just had a great, great, great experience. I

Meredith 8:11

Silence.

Bowser 8:21

in Chella, which is a really great city to walk around. You can see like the Phoenician influence, the Roman influence. It's like a almost like a open air museum. And in one corner of the ruins, they have this pond. And I had read about this pond, this like bricked in pond called the eel pond. And the legend was that for however many years, I don't know how many years. Yeah. People would go and and there are magic eels that live in this pond and they will be you could feed them hard boiled eggs and Depending on who you talk to, there are different blessings that that would bestow upon you. of course I go there, and I'm there with my two friends, and we're looking in the pond. See any eels? There's little minnows. I don't see any eels. No, no. Five minutes go by, nothing. I happen to have a, an egg and cheese, half an egg and cheese sandwich in my pocket that I hadn't, that I hadn't finished for breakfast, and I said, eh, let me just bring this with me. So I put a little egg in the pond, just bloop, drop it in there. Wait about a minute. And this beautiful two and a half foot eel, just this gray ghost slowly comes out and nibbles the scrambled egg and then slowly goes right back into the rocky crevice. Oh, it's great. And there's, you go, you, you look across the world and there's, there's incredible, incredible cultural stories and legends and customs that have to do with Eels, a little island in Ireland off off of Galway in a shear, this tiny little rocky island of the island is a mat is a well if you know the story is if you go to the well and you walk around the well seven times and you look in and you see a magic eel, you'll be blessed with With vocal abilities for the rest of your life and I went there on vacation I didn't see the eel, but darn it. I I still think i'm blessed with vocal abilities So i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna credit that to the the the the well of enda on in a sheer You can look it up and then lastly, but it's not all just stories. So I was also in In southern India and in Kerala, Trivandrum, and I met up with a scientist there, Dr. Biju Kumar, and we went and talked with the local eel fishermen and we started talking about why are eels important. eels have, to, to, to, to Dr. Kumar's people, eels have great Medicinal values that sometimes kids would be fed if they got sick particularly for asthma. A little bit of eel slime. Remember we started talking about slime? Eel slime would be mixed with flour to make like a little, a little dough ball that you could fry up and eat. And that supposedly helps with asthma. And there's lots of different stories of eel skin helping out with arthritis and other things. So you start. You start going around the world and these anguillid eels, these nearly magical animals that migrate and hide and appear and disappear and travel, right? We are, they are pretty magical cultures all over the world have been. connections with eels, and so it's, it never ever ends the fascination with this animal.

Meredith 11:42

I mean, I'm fascinated.

Bowser 11:44

Oh, they're great. They're awesome.

Meredith 11:46

I'm, I'm actually going, well, you seem very well traveled. You've seen a lot of eels.

Bowser 11:52

If there's eels, I want to get now. I'm not well traveled enough. There's still too many eels. I did. I got to get out and see, but, but hopefully I got some decades left. We'll see what happens.

Meredith 12:00

And before we get into our rapid fire, hopefully you still have time for that.

Bowser 12:04

Do. If you do.

Meredith 12:05

I do any success stories that you want to share from your program or about the eel, like a little bit of hope.

Bowser 12:14

Yeah, I want to give you know what I want to say is a success story is I think all of the great people who have also fallen in love with eels and sort of like use this to kind of promote science literacy and environmental education and eel monitoring. And so like, I want to just, I have so many like eel heroes that I just want to like really highlight like, Caitlin Gannon at the Jacques Cousteau Research Reserve in New Jersey, who started her own eel project in Southern New Jersey, but that's not, let's, let's just love New Jersey for a minute. My colleague, Isabel Stanette is working with teachers and educators. Like on, on an eel project in northern New Jersey, which is fantastic. Former eel project volunteer, Ji Sun Reiner, is doing eel monitoring on the island of Nantucket. And so, and I love it when different colleagues keep in touch with me, even if they're not involved with eeling. high school volunteers or, or, or former, former community volunteers that are telling me about the different sort of environmental projects that they're working on or they're volunteering on. I just love that it's all connected. So like the success stories I think are, yes, about the eels. I'm glad that we've caught all these eels and we put them above dams. That's a huge success story. I'm glad that here in the Hudson Valley, my colleagues. have worked on dam removals and reconnecting streams here in the Hudson Valley, but I am really proud of all of the people who are doing great things. Martise Shauna, you know who you are and you know that you're doing awesome things. Aiden, Gracie, thank you for all the great work you do. I just got to give shout outs, sorry, they may not ever even hear this, but I want those names to be there. I wish I could, I wish I could just keep littering off names.

Meredith 14:10

Well, I think that's one of the really impactful things about community science and these programs is that it is that outreach, right? Like one individual can only, you know, there's only so many working hours, only so many waking hours, you, you're limited in your impact. But when you start Impacting others and opening other people's eyes of your impact and the impact of your program can just multiply.

Bowser 14:38

Well, that's one of the great things, too, about working with students and, and working with school systems. And, and if there are any teachers who are out there we actually have on our, on our website at Herner. org, and I'll, I'll give you the link, Meredith, to put in the show notes. We actually have a whole bunch of eel lesson plans that you can, you can basically bring into your classroom, whether you have access to a stream or not, there's really, really interesting, interesting things. And, and we work with a lot of great teachers you know, teachers who have volunteered with us before. I'm thinking of, of Miss Sagan, you know who you are, Miss Bauman, you know who you are, who are who are basically taking, hey, you know, I, once upon a time, I was involved in this project, and now years later, I'm a teacher, and that's that multiplying effect that you're talking about. So if, if you have young people in your lives, or teachers that you know, or that you are we've got plenty of resources. No matter, you don't have to be in New York either to do this. This is applicable to anywhere on the East Coast. Oh boy,

Meredith 15:36

Well, on that note, I think it's time to go into rapid fire. Okay. And the first one, I didn't even give you an advance, so I'm being really mean, but do you have a favorite fact? Or I, well, how do you get people to go from ew to ew with eels?

Bowser 15:56

so, so that's just, that's just a matter of hands on. That's a matter of like getting in the stream, holding on to an eel, and actually seeing it in your hand and realizing. I guess my, my favorite fun fact in that is that I want to make this really clear. American eels, the eels that we have in the continental United States are not electric eels. Electric eels live in a few freshwater rivers of South America. They exist, but not here in North America. That's my, that's my important fact. How about that? I'll give you that one.

Meredith 16:29

That's very important. So people can be a little

Bowser 16:32

will not get shocked by eels here.

Meredith 16:35

will you get bit?

Bowser 16:39

It is possible to get bit by a larger eel. I have to say, it happens very, very rarely. Eels do not really like to bite people. But it can happen and also I'll, we'll stick with bites for a second. You, you talk about like hidden talents or superpowers later. One of the cool things about eels that they do is they can corkscrew. They can, they, they, you know, most, most, most fish will only eat what they can fit into their mouth. Eels, what they can do is they can actually bite onto something and then they can use their muscles to spit. like a drill and basically spin that bite full like a, like a, like a corkscrew out of that body or that bigger piece of meat or whatever and swallow that. And if you go online, you can see videos of this happening. amazing stuff.

Meredith 17:33

That is wild.

Bowser 17:35

It is pretty wild. Yeah, it's pretty cool.

Meredith 17:38

What do you think is the biggest myth about this animal? Is it that it's electric?

Bowser 17:43

That is the biggest myth, but I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say something that some people would think is a myth, but isn't. And so this is like the anti myth maybe? Is that what

Meredith 17:51

Yeah.

Bowser 17:52

It's that eels can crawl out of the water and travel over land. And the truth is, they can. They can actually, long as it's like a wet night, and they can keep their skin damp, they can diffuse oxygen through their skin, and actually do pretty well out of the water for short periods of time, so that you can find eels, like little eels traveling upstream and trying to get above dams, or larger eels that may be on their way downstream. can travel out and slither through wet grass around dams or streams or other barriers. So it is possible to find eels. In fact, a friend of mine found an eel in her driveway that was probably had left a farm pond and was slithering down towards the Hudson River on a wet night and that eel was 46 inches long. One of the biggest eels I've ever heard about here in the Hudson Valley. That was years ago.

Meredith 18:54

Okay, so the mucus really is a superpower because I'm assuming that's what helps also keep them

Bowser 18:59

You

Meredith 19:00

to breathe.

Bowser 19:00

Yeah. The mu yeah, and the mucus comes in there. I'm telling

Meredith 19:03

Yeah.

Bowser 19:03

is the way we'd all be better covered with mucus.

Meredith 19:06

And we actually didn't talk about how big do an American eel, how big can they get?

Bowser 19:11

You know, if we see, if we see a, a three foot American eel, we're like, whoa. That thing's huge. Probably state records, as you start to look around, you can see records of like five or six feet. that's for the anguilla rostrata, the American eel. There are other species of eels that get even bigger, like the long finned eel in New Zealand, or the great mottled eel in South Africa. We're talking about eels getting to six, seven feet long. They get they can get really big.

Meredith 19:51

They're giving their ocean brothers some, a run for their money at that point.

Bowser 19:56

I guess someday I want to see one of those eels. Oh, I would just love to hug it.

Meredith 20:01

That would be at a little extra slime, maybe with that hug.

Bowser 20:03

I can take it.

Meredith 20:06

And if the American eel were to give a TED talk to humans, what do you think they're going to say? What's the title?

Bowser 20:14

The talk would be humans, consume less, put less pollution out there. What's with this microplastics? What's with all of these carbon emissions? Like, even if you don't like us animals. Think of yourselves.

Meredith 20:33

Yeah.

Bowser 20:33

what their TED talk would be. It's like humans. Think about you, like, like be environmentally conscious, not for the pandas and the whales and the redwoods, be environmentally conscious for you, for your economy, for your, for your ski slopes and your maple syrup and everything you love about where you live. Think about things. Just, just see how it's all connected. We're all in this together. This is not as divisive as it needs to be.

Meredith 21:02

Oh,

Bowser 21:02

That's what the TED Talks would be.

Meredith 21:04

we need that Ted talk.

Bowser 21:06

We do.

Meredith 21:06

also really random. Do you think, is there a correlation? If somebody were, do you think statistically between when maple syrup starts running and when meals come back?

Bowser 21:18

That's a really Meredith, Meredith, Meredith. I now you've just this. That's a perfect scientific question right there. That is great.

Meredith 21:27

so random?

Bowser 21:28

it's funny because I have a colleague who sits next to me and he maple syrups at home. And, and he's, he literally brought me some syrup today, and the eels are just arriving now. Your, your phenological instincts are great. In other words, your, your ideas of seasonal change are on the money.

Meredith 21:49

Thank you. I also was out helping my dad with maple syrup this weekend. So it's, it's top of mind.

Bowser 21:55

I love this. I love this.

Meredith 21:57

And what's the been the most surprising thing? You found working with eels.

Bowser 22:03

That's a great question. I think I was just so surprised about, I mean, I can literally remember being surprised about their life cycle, being surprised because it, and the surprising part, like if, if I think of it from like an evolutionary point of view, it's kind of like, well, how did this work out? Like, how does seems really difficult? Being born in the ocean and like traveling to shore and then like living for decades like there are fish species that hatch in May or that that hatch in April and are breeding by like August or September and might breed a couple times in a year like it's just like the biologist in me or the evolutionary ecologist in me is like How does this? How did this, who thought, who came up with this,

Meredith 22:55

Yeah.

Bowser 22:55

from an kind of way. It's like, how did this happen? And, but it's been happening a long time. You can go to, you can go to the Museum of Natural History in New York and you can see an eel fossil that dates from the, the, the time of the late dinosaurs. So it's, they're doing it.

Meredith 23:13

They've had a long time to evolve to get this weird.

Bowser 23:16

Boy, they've had a, that's a good, that's a good tagline. We've had a long time to evolve to get this weird.

Meredith 23:21

Yeah.

Bowser 23:21

that.

Meredith 23:23

And if the eel were to have a super power, what is it?

Bowser 23:28

Survival.

Meredith 23:29

Hmm.

Bowser 23:30

Survival. Survival. Ice ages come and go, you know, people come and go meteorites hit the earth oceans change. I mean, remember, this is, this is enhanced, the, the, the, the map of the continents have changed over time. And ezeals. on trucking. And, and so I hope that we as human beings are a part of their survival, just like they, I think, are a part of our survival. So

Meredith 24:00

How tragic would it be that, you know, they've survived all that calamity and humans are the one calamity they can't withstand.

Bowser 24:08

not on my watch,

Meredith 24:09

Yeah. Agreed. Okay. Since you work with so many people, you've got to have a good story for this. What's the most hilarious or unexpected reaction you've gotten from people when you tell them what you do for work?

Bowser 24:24

So I'm actually going to, I, this, this, this is okay. This is a true story. I bring an eel to New York city a, in a five gallon bucket. And I gotta, I gotta, I'm walking through New York City with a five gallon bucket and an eel on there, and I have a little battery powered bubbler to bubble oxygen into my bucket to keep the eel handy. The eel would be fine even without it, but I want the eel to be happy. I run out of batteries. So on the ride home, I'm on a commuter train, New York City, if you've ever taken the Metro North, it gets packed in there. I got a seat on the train, I got a bucket between my feet, the train is packed, people are filing in. I want to give my eel some oxygen, so I start blowing into the air tube. So I'm this weirdo sitting there with a bucket on the floor and a tube coming out and I'm blowing into the tube. And this, this, this woman after a long day, she's well dressed, obviously an executive or, you know, some, a businesswoman, sits down next to me. one look at me, and I'm there blowing, and I go, I got an eel in the bucket. She doesn't blink. She just stands right up, and just keeps on walking.

Meredith 25:38

I think that's

Bowser 25:39

oh.

Meredith 25:39

very impressive. Like the amount of oddity you have to present to disturb a New Yorker to change seats on a commuter. Congratulations.

Bowser 25:51

You're darn right. You're darn right. Yep. Yep.

Meredith 25:55

Okay. I love that image. Now if the American Eel were to win a competition, maybe not a beauty contest, but who knows, what do you think their title? What category are they dominating? Fastest? Smartest? Toughest?

Bowser 26:11

Most surprising. It's got the biggest Delta. It's got the biggest dealt. It's got the biggest efficiency rating of like perceived reputation to Actual fact, like, if if you want, maybe, like, a sports analogy, would be, biggest underdog, right, like, eels? Ew! Gross! Horrible! Disgusting! I hate them, and then when you get to the truth of eels it is way up here. So they are the biggest underdog. They get the highest efficiency rate of surprising actuality.

Meredith 26:49

Okay, love that. And then, I mean, we've talked a lot about how weird they are, but is there a feature or behavior, other than the corkscrew, because I think it might be hard to top that, that makes you, when you look at the eel, go, wow, nature is so cool.

Bowser 27:05

Yes, yes, yes, yes. So, thank you, Canada, for doing some great eel research. In 2014 a study was published. May was 2015. A bunch of eels were released, were tagged, were given satellite tags. They were caught in the St. Lawrence River. And they were released from Nova Scotia to give them a little head start. So, thank you Maritimes. Most of the eels got eaten almost immediately. 30 eels, of them were just eaten. Because, you know, you

Meredith 27:36

Okay. Okay.

Bowser 27:55

to the Sargasso Sea. It was a silver eel. So this one eel made in cr. If you look at a map of it, it goes do south from Nova Scotia. Then it goes do east towards Europe. Then it stops and it goes do west for a little bit and then turns again. It goes do south, and the compass directions it's

Meredith 28:17

Silence.

Bowser 28:37

in birds that have trace elements of magnetite or other, or other, you know magnetic trace minerals that may allow it to, to basically cue into the Earth's magnetic fields. And this one eel in this study is one of 30 that made it, is just, was just this like mind blowing I, I say in quotes, because you know, it's science, so we want to be careful about that word. But this mind blowing, strong suggestion that eels have this magnetic compass that allows them to travel thousands of miles after decades. They haven't, this, this eel hadn't been in the Sargasso Sea or the northern or the Atlantic Ocean for years, maybe decades. And it was something in it was helping it get back there. Amazing.

Meredith 29:29

That's so cool. Cause yes, I'm, I'm a truly a bird nerd. So we think a lot about migration, spring migration is happening,

Bowser 29:37

Yep.

Meredith 29:37

lots of fish migrate as well. And very cool to think about there actually might be some sort of convergent evolution or something that's allowed them to pick up similar magnetic fields or something that's fascinating.

Bowser 29:51

awesome. Oh, golly. I want to, yes, just amazing.

Meredith 29:55

And you've come out on this podcast saying you love eels. You've stated it boldly.

Bowser 30:00

Hmm.

Meredith 30:01

But what was your aha moment that you knew you actually wanted to work with yields?

Bowser 30:08

I'm so glad you asked because I actually can trace it back to an ah ha moment. Like, like, I actually have the moment. I, I had the great honor of working for a group called the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater. And the Clearwater is a big 100 foot wooden sailing boat that's, that's called the Classroom of the Waves. We would take, we would take groups of 20 or 30 or 40 people out of it at a time, sometimes students, sometimes members of the public, and, and we'd sail around and we could teach them about the Hudson River with, with nets that we would put in the river and pull up fish or, or, or water quality or talking about history and maps. It was, I mean, it's a beautiful, beautiful boat and a great organization. So one day We are sailing in New York Harbor. And we put the net in the water, and the net comes up. It's New York Harbor, so you never know what you're gonna get. And in that net are some fish and some this. But there's also this toy recreational vehicle. This like toy plastic toy camper, you know about about a foot long And you know that you would put little little characters in it's a little like a little Tonka truck and it's covered With barnacles and sea squirts and anemones and bryozoans Also, it's like it's like a little mini coral reef. It's been down there so long So i'm picking this up as a member. It was like a public sale. So people of different ages and I'm new at being an environmental educator. This is very early in my career and people are looking at me with rapt attention. They're just like, their eyes are huge. Their mouths are gaped open. And I'm like, I am crushing it. I am so good at this. They are, they are really digging what I have to say about barnacles right now. And then I notice. Crawling out of the passenger window of the toy RV is this slowly unspooling footlong green eel that just slowly comes out and lands on the deck. And I'm People weren't listening to me. I was like a Charlie Brown cartoon to them. Like wah, wah, wah, wah. They were just looking at this eel. And I was like, and then I was fascinated by it. It was like, Oh my God, this fish was living inside this RV for how long? That was the moment that I remember eels entering. the forebrain of my existence and, and, and like from that point onward, were a part of my life for to this very, very day.

Meredith 32:41

Oh, that's, that's a great aha moment. That's

Bowser 32:44

was

Meredith 32:45

could be like an aha, but I'm glad it was a spark for you. So,

Bowser 32:50

great

Meredith 32:50

Chris, I enjoyed this conversation so much. Thank you for. Donating your time and a little extra here. So I really appreciate it. And I love, I love talking to you about eels could do it all day.

Bowser 33:02

Thank You Meredith Well, if you ever find yourself on the Hudson Valley in springtime Come out healing with us and and this goes for air for for everybody check out DEC gov for for more stuff or maybe it's DC dot NY gov. Sorry about that if I screwed that up But anyway, every you listening, you know what to do, you know how to help Get outside, do the best you can, be well.

Meredith 33:31

And that's a wrap on our two-part adventure with the American Eel and the ever inspiring Chris Bowser. A huge thank you to Chris for sharing his passion and knowledge. You can't help but walk away from this episode with a whole new appreciation for these fascinating fish. And before I let you go, let's break down an important scientific concept. Chris mentioned bioaccumulation. This refers to the gradual buildup of substances, especially contaminants like pesticides or heavy metals in a living organism over time. Since American eels are long-lived and opportunistic feeders that eat everything from aquatic insects to fish, crustacean and worms, they are particularly vulnerable to bioaccumulation. This is a major issue for their conservation and one of the reasons why protecting our waterways is so important. Bioaccumulation is something you hear pretty frequently with fish, especially fish we eat. It's why we are warned against eating too much tuna, which might have mercury built up in their system and why from a health standpoint, people are dissuaded from eating shark and dolphin, but bioaccumulation isn't just restricted to the water. It occurs in every ecosystem. And when things are in balance, it isn't a major issue. But with microplastics, pollutants, pesticides. Bioaccumulation can cause major issues for organisms, especially the ones that are higher up the food chain. So next time you hear bioaccumulation, that's what it means. And remember the American eel. Now let's test your eel knowledge. True or false? Ankle eels include the American eel, the electric eel, and the Moray Eel. The answer is obviously false. Angulate eels are the group of eels that start life in the ocean, migrate to fresh water for most of their lives, and then return to the ocean to reproduce. Electric eels, despite their name aren't true eels at all. They only live in South America. More eels, on the other hand, are mostly marine, with few exceptions. And if you need a visual, just think of Ursula Pets from The Little Mermaid. Here's another skill testing question. Where do American eels lives begin? If you said the Sarcas, so see, you nailed it. If not, don't worry now, you'll never forget. Chris is a fabulous storyteller, and his story about traveling the world to see different eels reminded me of how birding has completely changed the way I travel. I can't take a trip without checking eBird first to see what species might be nearby, and it's becoming a bit of a running joke in my family. My husband even mentioned it in his wedding vows, and while he's not a birder himself, he humors me and has an incredible eye for spotting birds. So I love it when he comes along. Now, whenever I go somewhere new, I am know. I'm bound to see new species. In fact, I have an upcoming trip to Belize, and my top target bird for this trip is the white collared mannequin. I'll let you know how it goes, but fingers crossed for a lifer. Now, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. It helps rarefied reach even more people who care about protecting our planet's rare species. And as always, you can follow us on Instagram at rarefied pod and sign up for our newsletter on our website for updates and sneak peaks at upcoming episodes. Until next time, get out there and explore the wild, because every species has a story and every one of us can make a difference. I'm your host, Meredith Meer. Thank you for listening and happy trails.