Ronald Reed, age 10, of Islington, Ontario, ohi"question:
How come we find eels in the winter?
Ronald has learned that eels are born at sea and that the parent eels migrate back to their breeding grounds to die: This is true. But Ronald knows that people trap eels in fresh water streams during the winter. He wonders, naturally, if this known fact contradicts the story that eels migrate. No, it does not.
The word migrate reminds us of the birds who migrate every year between their summer and winter homes. But soma animals take more than a year to migrate from one place to another, Baby salmon, far example, migrate from their fresh water streams far out to sea where they spend three to eight years of their adult lives. Only after this long period do they migrate back to their nurseries and breeding grounds.
The slimy, slippery eel also takes several years to migrate to and from his breeding grounds and he makes the journey to and fro only once in his life. The eels we find in our Atlantic streams and ponds were all hatched in the balmy waters of the weedy Sargasso Sea, not far from Bermuda. There, after the eggs were produced, the parent eels all perished.
The baby eels, like fiat, glassy worms, set cut in multitudes on a long ocean voyage towards our shores. They had no guides, no adults show them the way, yet they took the same route their ancestors had taken for generations. Many were eaten by hungry sea dwellers, but after 18 months the remaining travelers reached cur shores. They were then two inches long and round like eels.
Where the streams meet the sea, the male youngsters separated from the females. The males grew up and spent the next few years in brackish waters near the sea. The females started up the rivers and streams of fresh water.
They journeyed inland from stream to stream, from lake to lake. Sometimes they traveled at night over land.
Year by year, this generation of eels grows bigger. Winter and summer we can catch the females in our fresh water streams, often far from the sea. We can catch the males in river mouths and brackish water near the sea. Here they all live from seven to twelve years. Then they start the long migration back to their breeding grounds. The females may be two to six feet long, the males one to one and a half feet long.
We can find this same generation of eels, winter or summer, inland or near our shores, for several years. But each year, a new generation of baby eels arrives from the sea and an older generation reaches the age to migrate back to the breeding grounds. This is why there are some growing and adult eels to be had in our streams every year, summer and winter.