Elvers Interrupted

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<p>This past Sunday afternoon, I was lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time to see something extraordinary. Sitting on the bank of Mill Brook just below the Mill Pond dam, watching to see what fish might be about, I spied several dozen tiny elvers (one and a half inch-long baby eels) against a patch of light colored sand in the stream bottom, trying unsuccessfully to make their way upstream.</p>

Editors, Vineyard Gazette:

This past Sunday afternoon, I was lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time to see something extraordinary. Sitting on the bank of Mill Brook just below the Mill Pond dam, watching to see what fish might be about, I spied several dozen tiny elvers (one and a half inch-long baby eels) against a patch of light colored sand in the stream bottom, trying unsuccessfully to make their way upstream.

Awesome to consider the journey that these tiny eels had made across the entire Atlantic Ocean from where they spawned in the Sargasso Sea, only to have their life cycle blocked by the 24-inch drop of the dam at Mill Pond.

 

Prudy Burt, West Tisbury

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Thu, 05/09/2013 - 06:14

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CHARLES BOURGET FALMOUTH MASS

Having spent many winters in Maine we (the fisherman)tried to stop the slaughter of hundreds of millions of these babies from the onslaught of fine mesh nets that were used to strangulate the rivers and streams. With thousands of individual eels per pound the dealers ruled the DMF and the state sanctioned slaughter under the regime of Gorge Lapointe wiped out the young of the year (YOY)(for all practical purposes).
Even just week the ASFC(Atlantic States Fisheries Commission) had feel good meetings here at MMA to pontificate this subject. Biology 101 and a Marine Department of Fisheries with values of NATURES WAY WOULD HAVE banned this convoluted destruction of these beautiful creatures decades ago-a no brainer...but $$$2-5,000/pound was their" fishery manager$$$ call of the wild"...so sad and a violation of natures and the publics trust.. I am insulted by this kind of monetary resource management--shame on all the cohorts of this crime against nature ..Chip Bourget

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