No, they aren’t something on display at the Dorflinger Museum in Hawley. Glass eels are juvenile American eels that are transparent. They are spawned and born in the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic Ocean and migrate up streams and rivers into fresh water where they live their lives before returning to the sea to reproduce and continue the cycle.

American eels were classified as an endangered species in 2012. The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has classified the resource as “depleted”. In recent years, the huge decline in Pacific eels has caused a lucrative black market in our East Coast Glass eels. These juvenile American eels can fetch $2500 a pound when they are harvested illegally and shipped to Asia to be raised in captivity at aquaculture operations there.

The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently upheld a decision of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York wherein members of a native tribe on Long Island had been arrested for harvesting Glass eels on areas off their reservation and violating NYS DEC regulations. I’m glad to see that these endangered eels are being protected.

Over-harvesting isn’t the only cause in the huge decline of Glass eels. Another significant problem is caused by dams on our waterways. Unlike the solution of adding “ladders” to the dams to help adult salmon get upriver to spawn, the eel lifecycle works in the opposite direction and the juvenile eels have no way to get upstream to live out their lives (American eels often live more than 20 years upstream in fresh water before returning to the Ocean at the end of their lives to breed).

American eels come in a variety of colors, from olive-green to brown to greenish-yellow, with light grey or white on their bellies. The eels found in non-acidic fresh water are lighter in color than those found in water with tannic acid (tannic acid in streams and rivers is naturally occurring and comes from hemlock bark and chestnut, oak and other trees).

When American eels complete their epic journey to the Sargasso (isn’t nature just amazing?), the females lay up to 4 million eggs each. The eggs hatch into larvae which then metamorphose into Glass eels when they reach North America and fresh water. Later on, after travelling upstream the Glass eels change into yellow eels before they mature and get their final coloration as adults.

If you see some Glass eels, please leave them be. If we all work together, hopefully someday we can restore our population of American eels and get them off of the endangered species list. Let’s all enjoy the outdoors!

John S. Van etten is the current president of the Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs of Sullivan County, Inc.