1 00:00:00,080 --> 00:00:02,680 And I mean to have Jodi on day four of this. 2 00:00:02,720 --> 00:00:06,160 It's like 9 p.m. and she's texting me about eels. 3 00:00:06,480 --> 00:00:07,720 This is her free time. 4 00:00:08,240 --> 00:00:12,400 This woman has decided to Google the Sargasso Sea when she could be sleeping. 5 00:00:13,240 --> 00:00:16,600 Which. Which is to say, it's thousands of miles. 6 00:00:16,640 --> 00:00:20,240 Like it's it's far the distance they have to travel to the Sargasso Sea. 7 00:00:20,560 --> 00:00:24,160 That's amazing. This is beyond the shore from Michigan public. 8 00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:28,560 I'm Rebecca Williams. This is the final story in our series about the Great Lakes. 9 00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:31,360 One story per lake. A sort of snapshot. 10 00:00:31,520 --> 00:00:34,240 A little microcosm of what makes each lake unique. 11 00:00:35,080 --> 00:00:37,200 Chapter five Lake Ontario. 12 00:00:37,400 --> 00:00:41,120 Unsafe passage. This story is brought to us by Kate Furby, 13 00:00:41,160 --> 00:00:43,280 Michigan public's environment reporter. 14 00:00:45,600 --> 00:00:50,360 An eel world. The biggest, oldest females reproduce the most. 15 00:00:50,640 --> 00:00:54,320 And Lake Ontario is like the headquarters of the eel Queens. 16 00:00:54,760 --> 00:00:59,510 So the lake is critical habitat for the global population of American eels. 17 00:01:00,030 --> 00:01:01,910 When you told me that they weren't just eels, 18 00:01:01,910 --> 00:01:05,710 they were like a badass gang of Lady eels in Lake Ontario. 19 00:01:06,030 --> 00:01:07,950 I mean, that changes everything, right? 20 00:01:08,910 --> 00:01:14,150 How can you not cheer for these lady eels completely being like, 21 00:01:14,190 --> 00:01:15,590 yeah, Lake Ontario is our home. 22 00:01:15,910 --> 00:01:16,990 What are you gonna do about it? 23 00:01:17,310 --> 00:01:20,550 That's Jodie Westrick, Michigan public's director of digital 24 00:01:20,550 --> 00:01:24,950 audiences. Our plan was to go on an eel road trip, 25 00:01:25,190 --> 00:01:30,310 drive 500 miles of the American Eels, 3000 plus mile migratory route, 26 00:01:30,550 --> 00:01:33,550 stop along the way to see eels and talk to zookeepers, 27 00:01:33,550 --> 00:01:35,430 scientists and community members. 28 00:01:36,310 --> 00:01:39,110 These eels spend most of their lives in Lake Ontario, 29 00:01:39,110 --> 00:01:42,230 but their whole lifecycle is unbelievable. 30 00:01:42,430 --> 00:01:45,470 It involves multiple complete transformations, 31 00:01:45,510 --> 00:01:51,070 thousands of miles of migration, numerous death traps and mystery sex. 32 00:01:51,630 --> 00:01:57,070 But the Lake Ontario eels are in trouble, and the eel doesn't exist in a vacuum. 33 00:01:57,270 --> 00:01:58,540 Humans are animals, too. 34 00:01:58,580 --> 00:02:02,660 We're part of ecosystems, and in my experience as an ecologist, 35 00:02:02,660 --> 00:02:05,500 unhealthy habitats also hurt people. 36 00:02:05,900 --> 00:02:09,500 So this is an eel story, but with human neighbors, 37 00:02:09,500 --> 00:02:11,700 human family really, as you'll see. 38 00:02:12,060 --> 00:02:16,340 And the tragedy of the eels has carved out wounds in its communities. 39 00:02:17,500 --> 00:02:22,900 One of the eels challenges might be a perception problem because it's not a four 40 00:02:22,940 --> 00:02:23,980 legged furry friend. 41 00:02:24,020 --> 00:02:25,820 They're made out to be evil. 42 00:02:25,860 --> 00:02:29,260 Like, I feel like eels have this really bad PR campaign. 43 00:02:29,500 --> 00:02:31,660 Whenever we would catch them, you know, it was like, 44 00:02:32,500 --> 00:02:34,900 they're horrible. They're slimy, they're scary. 45 00:02:35,060 --> 00:02:37,900 Before we left for our trip, I talked with Lisa Holtz, 46 00:02:38,100 --> 00:02:41,980 the rare fish unit leader at the New York State Department of Environmental 47 00:02:41,980 --> 00:02:42,900 Conservation. 48 00:02:42,940 --> 00:02:47,540 If you think about a large eel that's been resident in Lake Ontario eating and doing her 49 00:02:47,580 --> 00:02:51,300 thing, chilling with her besties for for a couple of decades, 50 00:02:51,300 --> 00:02:53,500 by the time she gets back out to the Sargasso Sea, 51 00:02:53,540 --> 00:02:57,930 she is full of more eggs than, say, a smaller eel that might be coming from 52 00:02:57,930 --> 00:03:00,210 a population closer to the Sargasso Sea. 53 00:03:00,730 --> 00:03:05,690 Lake Ontario eels are mostly female and live about 15 to 40 years. 54 00:03:05,890 --> 00:03:09,650 It's a combination of geographical and environmental factors that explains why 55 00:03:09,650 --> 00:03:14,410 they're all female. Lake Ontario eels are historically important for the whole species 56 00:03:14,410 --> 00:03:16,170 globally, and here's why. 57 00:03:16,890 --> 00:03:18,650 First, we need to zoom out. 58 00:03:18,810 --> 00:03:25,570 Way out. American eels are one breeding population from Greenland all the way to 59 00:03:25,610 --> 00:03:29,970 Venezuela. They live in accessible rivers and lakes in between until they're ready to 60 00:03:30,010 --> 00:03:32,250 spawn, and then they go out to sea. 61 00:03:32,530 --> 00:03:38,250 So Lake Ontario eels swim all the way out through the Saint Lawrence River to a place 62 00:03:38,250 --> 00:03:41,610 in the North Atlantic called the Sargasso Sea. 63 00:03:42,010 --> 00:03:45,930 It's bounded by currents, topped with mats of floating seaweed. 64 00:03:45,930 --> 00:03:50,730 And just for added drama overlaps the Bermuda Triangle. 65 00:03:51,170 --> 00:03:54,130 It's about the same size as the continental US, 66 00:03:54,240 --> 00:03:58,120 But it's also like an island of water within water. 67 00:03:58,120 --> 00:03:59,800 So we're measuring a blob. 68 00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:03,600 And nobody's ever actually seen it happen that I know of. 69 00:04:03,600 --> 00:04:08,400 But they get together as one giant group and they spawn and that's it. 70 00:04:08,400 --> 00:04:09,840 They spawn once and they die. 71 00:04:10,080 --> 00:04:13,720 We think just because we never see them again. 72 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:17,200 One thing that really struck me as we went through this journey. 73 00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:23,480 American eels are extremely strange and surprisingly hard to study due to research 74 00:04:23,480 --> 00:04:27,000 limitations and the lack of consistent data collection over time. 75 00:04:27,280 --> 00:04:31,000 The eel facts in this story pretty much all have caveats. 76 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:34,200 We are constantly updating our idea of the eel, 77 00:04:34,200 --> 00:04:36,160 and there's still so much we don't know. 78 00:04:36,520 --> 00:04:40,760 In tracking studies, scientists have seen tagged eels go to the Sargasso. 79 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,120 They've recorded the eels diving hundreds of meters deep. 80 00:04:44,840 --> 00:04:47,920 The theory is that they're mating deep in the ocean, 81 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:53,030 in the Sargasso Sea, where it's dark and cold and secret. 82 00:04:53,470 --> 00:04:58,910 And then teeny tiny, unrecognizable, pretty much transparent little leaf looking 83 00:04:58,950 --> 00:05:05,350 larvae start to appear, and those itty bitty s have to now swim slash 84 00:05:05,390 --> 00:05:10,470 drift slash. Catch a ride on the Gulf Stream all the way back to their freshwater 85 00:05:10,470 --> 00:05:12,990 habitats, North and South America. 86 00:05:13,550 --> 00:05:17,950 And as they go, they're growing and eating and transforming so that by the time they 87 00:05:17,950 --> 00:05:22,590 reach freshwater, they're looking more eel like and more solid. 88 00:05:23,310 --> 00:05:27,710 During this entire time, I had zero concept of where the Sargasso Sea 89 00:05:27,750 --> 00:05:30,310 was. I mean, I was just not in my head along like I did. 90 00:05:30,310 --> 00:05:33,110 So I figured you should probably Google it to like, 91 00:05:33,310 --> 00:05:38,390 really understand. And so I was texting Kate because you don't realize how far away the 92 00:05:38,390 --> 00:05:41,190 Sargasso Sea is and the fact that they're coming back, 93 00:05:41,230 --> 00:05:45,350 it's these little tiny babies, like they're making that journey that far. 94 00:05:45,670 --> 00:05:48,670 And can I just say that, like being on a reporting trip with someone 95 00:05:48,670 --> 00:05:54,180 and you're on day four of 12 hour days where we are doing nothing but eels. 96 00:05:54,220 --> 00:05:57,020 Like even my small talk in the car was eels. 97 00:05:57,060 --> 00:05:58,860 I brought multiple books. 98 00:05:58,860 --> 00:06:00,180 You made a playlist? 99 00:06:00,700 --> 00:06:02,380 I made an eel playlist. 100 00:06:02,420 --> 00:06:02,780 An eel. 101 00:06:02,780 --> 00:06:04,940 Playlist. There's this band called The eels. 102 00:06:05,180 --> 00:06:05,940 Never heard of them. 103 00:06:07,060 --> 00:06:09,180 We had eel hats. As you know. 104 00:06:09,220 --> 00:06:11,180 Jody and I were gone for five days. 105 00:06:11,180 --> 00:06:13,620 We did not tell Rebecca, my editor. 106 00:06:13,660 --> 00:06:18,740 Anything, anything. What do you know so far about the story? 107 00:06:18,740 --> 00:06:21,460 You went to Canada and you were looking for eels. 108 00:06:21,460 --> 00:06:24,140 And then we sent you an update of Kate eating a bagel. 109 00:06:24,180 --> 00:06:26,340 Did you actually see any eels? 110 00:06:26,620 --> 00:06:27,180 We did. 111 00:06:28,660 --> 00:06:30,860 We saw, like, five alive. 112 00:06:31,660 --> 00:06:32,100 Yeah. 113 00:06:35,220 --> 00:06:38,820 Let's call this mile marker zero for our trip. 114 00:06:38,980 --> 00:06:40,620 Our first time seeing eels. 115 00:06:40,860 --> 00:06:42,940 Toronto, Ontario, Canada. 116 00:06:43,220 --> 00:06:48,380 First stop, the Toronto Zoo this morning. 117 00:06:50,810 --> 00:06:53,290 It's so cute. You can see there's one little eyeball visible. 118 00:06:53,330 --> 00:07:00,010 It looks like you got a decent pile in here so we can see there are four in total, 119 00:07:00,050 --> 00:07:01,410 but they're very good. Burrowers. 120 00:07:01,810 --> 00:07:05,130 Sam Murchie is the lead keeper for fishes at the Toronto Zoo. 121 00:07:05,730 --> 00:07:09,770 We're crowding around the eel exhibit with him while visitors walk by and stare 122 00:07:09,810 --> 00:07:14,130 curiously at what appears to be an empty tank with a pile of logs. 123 00:07:14,170 --> 00:07:15,690 They're a gift that keeps on giving. 124 00:07:15,730 --> 00:07:21,090 As far as just how fascinating they are, because you can spend your professional life 125 00:07:21,090 --> 00:07:26,290 just thinking about their life cycle and never even getting into the migratory aspect. 126 00:07:26,330 --> 00:07:27,010 I think so. 127 00:07:27,050 --> 00:07:30,650 After meeting Sam and the Toronto Eels, we continue our own migration. 128 00:07:30,810 --> 00:07:35,970 We're driving from Toronto along the northern coast of Lake Ontario and out along the Saint 129 00:07:35,970 --> 00:07:39,530 Lawrence River. Our budget wouldn't let us go all the way to Bermuda. 130 00:07:40,250 --> 00:07:44,970 The first day we drive about 100 miles, we stop in a small town at the northeast 131 00:07:44,970 --> 00:07:48,250 coast of Lake Ontario, and then we wake up the next morning and 132 00:07:48,250 --> 00:07:50,850 there's like, snow on everything. 133 00:07:50,970 --> 00:07:53,090 We have to, like, borrow an ice scraper. 134 00:07:53,330 --> 00:07:54,810 And then we start driving. 135 00:07:54,930 --> 00:07:58,530 Right now with the snow and everything being cold. 136 00:07:59,010 --> 00:08:03,450 We can pretty much assume that the eels in Lake Ontario are currently, 137 00:08:03,490 --> 00:08:05,170 like, buried in the mud. 138 00:08:05,890 --> 00:08:06,330 I mean. 139 00:08:06,530 --> 00:08:08,570 Given this economy, I don't blame them. 140 00:08:10,010 --> 00:08:12,730 I too would like to be buried under a rock. 141 00:08:14,410 --> 00:08:17,370 160 miles of near whiteout driving. 142 00:08:17,370 --> 00:08:20,650 Later, we arrive at the Saint Lawrence River Institute. 143 00:08:20,850 --> 00:08:24,530 It's a non-profit in Cornwall, Ontario, founded in partnership with the 144 00:08:24,530 --> 00:08:26,450 Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. 145 00:08:27,450 --> 00:08:30,890 This is Marianne Perrin, an aquatic ecologist at the institute. 146 00:08:31,570 --> 00:08:37,090 This is one of the most important habitats for American eel in the world. 147 00:08:37,770 --> 00:08:40,210 The Saint Lawrence River comes out of Lake Ontario, 148 00:08:40,370 --> 00:08:44,290 dividing the U.S. and Canada before going out to the Atlantic Ocean. 149 00:08:44,690 --> 00:08:50,360 Prior to 1985, hundreds of thousands, sometimes over a million eels, 150 00:08:50,360 --> 00:08:51,960 took that route each year. 151 00:08:51,960 --> 00:08:56,760 And in 1986 that number crashed significantly. 152 00:08:56,760 --> 00:09:01,400 So there's been a huge loss in the abundance of American eel for the river. 153 00:09:01,680 --> 00:09:06,400 The eels passing through the Saint Lawrence River had been through considerable human 154 00:09:06,400 --> 00:09:10,080 impacts, including heavy pollution of mercury and PCBs, 155 00:09:10,320 --> 00:09:13,960 in addition to fishing, climate change and invasive species. 156 00:09:14,760 --> 00:09:19,040 Part of Marianne's work has been digging into the available data and published research. 157 00:09:19,240 --> 00:09:21,800 What are the hypotheses for the crash of the eel, 158 00:09:21,800 --> 00:09:24,120 and which ones have real evidence behind them? 159 00:09:24,160 --> 00:09:29,440 Yeah. So in the Saint Lawrence watershed, they estimated that there is 8411 dams. 160 00:09:29,800 --> 00:09:33,280 There are two major hydroelectric dams in this part of the river. 161 00:09:33,280 --> 00:09:39,280 In 1932, the Arnaud Dam went online, and in 1958 the Moses-saunders Dam 162 00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:42,440 Moses-saunders is an internationally run dam. 163 00:09:42,680 --> 00:09:47,350 It spreads the one kilometre width of the river run by the New York Power Authority, 164 00:09:47,350 --> 00:09:51,390 or Nypa, on the US side, and Ontario Power Generation, 165 00:09:51,390 --> 00:09:53,710 or OPG on the Canadian side. 166 00:09:54,030 --> 00:09:57,870 Each side produces enough power for hundreds of thousands of homes, 167 00:09:58,350 --> 00:10:02,550 but once the dam is installed, it can reduce the available habitat for the 168 00:10:02,550 --> 00:10:05,750 eels, cutting them off from their natural migration. 169 00:10:06,150 --> 00:10:10,710 In some cases, the eels are reported to crawl out of the water and across the rocks in 170 00:10:10,710 --> 00:10:13,150 their attempts to continue their migration upstream. 171 00:10:13,390 --> 00:10:19,550 And we're lucky here in the sense that starting in the 70s, 172 00:10:19,790 --> 00:10:23,710 eels got access to that upstream habitat once again. 173 00:10:24,070 --> 00:10:27,910 Over time, eel ladders are slowly put in at the different dams. 174 00:10:28,030 --> 00:10:32,310 The Moses-saunders dam ladder sort of looks like a wheelchair ramp zigzagging up. 175 00:10:32,750 --> 00:10:36,230 To start the journey, the eels must first locate the ladder, 176 00:10:36,230 --> 00:10:38,550 which is sort of the width of a sidewalk. 177 00:10:38,670 --> 00:10:42,230 There's just one on either side of the kilometer long dam. 178 00:10:42,540 --> 00:10:45,620 Once they begin the climb, the journey can take hours, 179 00:10:45,940 --> 00:10:51,100 but it provides a route option for the first leg of their migration and before the crash, 180 00:10:51,140 --> 00:10:56,780 an average of 2000 eels per day were recorded going through the eel ladder during their 181 00:10:56,780 --> 00:11:01,380 peak migration. But the latter only works one way to go back out to sea. 182 00:11:01,420 --> 00:11:05,620 As adults, they have to make it back through the dam turbines. 183 00:11:05,620 --> 00:11:10,220 What does it take for an eel to make safe passage through the turbine? 184 00:11:10,260 --> 00:11:13,980 Look, if you think of a propeller that's, you know, 185 00:11:14,020 --> 00:11:15,540 that's going extremely fast. 186 00:11:15,540 --> 00:11:18,460 They just need to sort of be in that opening at the right time. 187 00:11:19,300 --> 00:11:21,340 There are differing mortality estimates here, 188 00:11:21,340 --> 00:11:23,540 depending on where and when the studies were done. 189 00:11:23,540 --> 00:11:29,860 But a commonly used study from the late 90s estimated the mortality at about 40% after 190 00:11:29,860 --> 00:11:31,540 passing through both dams. 191 00:11:31,980 --> 00:11:36,220 And the study was only counting the ones that died within the first few days. 192 00:11:36,340 --> 00:11:39,780 Some of these EOS might survive going through the turbines, 193 00:11:39,780 --> 00:11:43,410 but they have scrapes or lacerations or vertebrae damage. 194 00:11:43,410 --> 00:11:45,610 We don't know if they're making it or not. 195 00:11:45,650 --> 00:11:50,250 One program, partially funded by OPG, helps get a few thousand meals per year 196 00:11:50,250 --> 00:11:53,290 around the dam. Commercial fishers trap the eels, 197 00:11:53,290 --> 00:11:56,050 and then the eels are trucked around the dammed up river. 198 00:11:56,370 --> 00:11:59,570 It's a small number compared to how many eels used to do this trip, 199 00:11:59,570 --> 00:12:03,650 but every eel helps. It does force another question, 200 00:12:03,650 --> 00:12:08,410 though. Is there a way to make the turbines safer for the fish to begin with? 201 00:12:08,810 --> 00:12:12,570 So these fish safe turbines, instead of being a blade, 202 00:12:12,610 --> 00:12:18,250 they're more of like a scoop that will help sort of scoop the eels through the turbines 203 00:12:18,250 --> 00:12:19,930 to allow downstream passage. 204 00:12:21,010 --> 00:12:23,810 Both power companies that run the Moses-saunders Dam, 205 00:12:23,850 --> 00:12:29,730 Nypa and OPG, declined recorded interviews, but Nypa did send a statement that it has 206 00:12:29,730 --> 00:12:35,170 been an active collaborator on a design feasibility study examining turbine design to 207 00:12:35,210 --> 00:12:37,410 aid downstream eel passage. 208 00:12:37,970 --> 00:12:43,520 In 2024, OPG announced a project to refurbish the Canadian side of the dam to increase 209 00:12:43,520 --> 00:12:46,920 electricity production, but no mention is made of the eel. 210 00:12:46,920 --> 00:12:51,800 In the announcement of the construction, OPG declined to provide comment on fish safe 211 00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:55,840 turbines. Since our interview and tour requests were declined, 212 00:12:56,080 --> 00:12:59,200 we visited the OPG Dam Visitor's Centre to learn more. 213 00:12:59,640 --> 00:13:03,880 There's a big exhibit in the back with a banner that reads Inundation Day. 214 00:13:04,440 --> 00:13:07,000 It tells the story of the dam construction and how, 215 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:10,560 as a necessary part of the dam, the river water levels change, 216 00:13:10,600 --> 00:13:13,480 flooding parts of the populated shoreline. 217 00:13:13,960 --> 00:13:16,800 The placard reads The Lost Homeland. 218 00:13:16,920 --> 00:13:21,640 It says 6000 hectares of traditional lands were flooded and lost. 219 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:24,280 The values, culture and livelihoods of the Mohawk. 220 00:13:24,280 --> 00:13:26,760 People of Akwesasne were changed forever. 221 00:13:27,160 --> 00:13:31,120 The Mohawk people were given no opportunity to influence the projects or to share in the 222 00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:34,800 benefits. Abraham Francis grew up in Cornwall. 223 00:13:34,840 --> 00:13:37,160 He's an ecologist. 224 00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:42,390 My first memory of eel was like them of like finding them on the shoreline. 225 00:13:42,390 --> 00:13:46,750 Dogs loved them, loved to roll in them, and they would just stink, 226 00:13:47,190 --> 00:13:51,390 you know, that was like a big thing. Every year we would see a lot of eel chopped up and 227 00:13:51,390 --> 00:13:54,070 whatever in the river, but now we don't see that anymore. 228 00:13:54,550 --> 00:13:59,070 Part of the reason that we chose to come to Cornwall is that it's located just downstream 229 00:13:59,070 --> 00:14:03,110 from the Moses-saunders Dam, the dead and dying eels that have been hit by 230 00:14:03,110 --> 00:14:05,750 the turbines wash up along the shoreline. 231 00:14:05,750 --> 00:14:09,350 Here I'm Deer Clan in Mohawk from Akwesasne. 232 00:14:09,470 --> 00:14:13,430 I am getting my PhD in Environmental Science and engineering. 233 00:14:13,470 --> 00:14:19,110 It's my understanding of like indigenous science is it's very much about like 234 00:14:19,150 --> 00:14:23,230 observation. But like, what is the lesson in that observation? 235 00:14:23,230 --> 00:14:25,190 Or what is it telling us about? 236 00:14:25,190 --> 00:14:27,990 What kind of issues are out there that we need to address? 237 00:14:28,350 --> 00:14:32,270 And, and like, that's what brought me to the eel. 238 00:14:32,470 --> 00:14:34,430 We researched these issues. 239 00:14:34,430 --> 00:14:39,500 We understand the problems, and then we develop approaches to address 240 00:14:39,500 --> 00:14:43,580 that, whether that's policy, whether that's more research. 241 00:14:43,620 --> 00:14:47,780 However, that looks like perhaps it is like a funeral procession. 242 00:14:48,620 --> 00:14:52,380 And the passenger pigeon used to have like ceremony specifically for it, 243 00:14:52,860 --> 00:14:55,100 but they went extinct. 244 00:14:56,020 --> 00:15:00,260 And now they're a dance and they're a song. 245 00:15:00,980 --> 00:15:08,100 What kind of like relationships and language and knowledge that we lose because of that 246 00:15:08,100 --> 00:15:10,220 loss? Like for the eel. 247 00:15:10,540 --> 00:15:16,500 The eel is a clan species, and for us, the clans are the way that we 248 00:15:16,500 --> 00:15:18,100 organize our governance. 249 00:15:18,340 --> 00:15:22,940 But more importantly for me, it's how we organize around grief and loss. 250 00:15:23,300 --> 00:15:27,620 And I wonder what that means to us as a people. 251 00:15:27,660 --> 00:15:29,780 Like we lose a clan species. 252 00:15:30,620 --> 00:15:34,850 Are we going to watch the loss of a relative in this way, 253 00:15:35,050 --> 00:15:42,050 when we have their solutions out there, there's all sorts of relationships that we 254 00:15:42,050 --> 00:15:46,650 have with the eel that would have enshrined them as an important relative of ours. 255 00:15:47,130 --> 00:15:51,450 It feels like as indigenous people were screaming into the void to be heard, 256 00:15:51,690 --> 00:15:53,610 and we keep getting ignored. 257 00:15:54,330 --> 00:15:58,210 Like so many different things that we are disproportionately dealing with as a 258 00:15:58,210 --> 00:16:03,050 community, that is a consequence of this environmental violence that we have 259 00:16:03,050 --> 00:16:06,250 experienced. It begins with the dam. 260 00:16:06,890 --> 00:16:11,130 It begins with the pollution it, you know, and even further back, 261 00:16:11,170 --> 00:16:13,650 it starts with residential schools. 262 00:16:13,650 --> 00:16:21,370 It starts with the way that these different imposed ideologies implicated us as a people. 263 00:16:21,490 --> 00:16:25,650 Residential schools were usually boarding schools where indigenous children weren't 264 00:16:25,650 --> 00:16:28,330 allowed to speak their language or celebrate their culture. 265 00:16:28,530 --> 00:16:33,880 They were mandatory from the late 1800s all the way through the 1990s. 266 00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:35,000 In some places. 267 00:16:35,000 --> 00:16:38,280 I think my grief is like situated within. 268 00:16:42,240 --> 00:16:43,640 Like feeling powerless. 269 00:16:43,880 --> 00:16:45,800 And it's like, not even just like me. 270 00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:48,320 It's so many of like my relatives, like the eel. 271 00:16:48,360 --> 00:16:51,120 As a relative, it's my family. 272 00:16:51,120 --> 00:16:59,760 It's frustrating on so many levels for me, this system and who's in power and policy 273 00:16:59,800 --> 00:17:05,480 decisions, those kill us and they're killing the eel and they're killing the environment. 274 00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:11,040 And, and I think that really the power and benefit of bringing indigenous people, 275 00:17:11,040 --> 00:17:15,800 indigenous knowledge into the forefront, we have cultures that emerge directly from 276 00:17:15,800 --> 00:17:19,480 these landscapes. We have been caring for them for millennia, 277 00:17:19,760 --> 00:17:23,280 and we can teach the people around us how to do that, 278 00:17:24,360 --> 00:17:26,760 but we have to be supported. 279 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:29,000 And I don't even know if we have enough time. 280 00:17:29,040 --> 00:17:33,350 You know, I believe that the eel, if we set the light table correctly, 281 00:17:33,390 --> 00:17:37,790 aka like if there was a mechanism for them to go up and down the river, 282 00:17:38,070 --> 00:17:41,990 then they'll come home and they'll be on those natural movements, 283 00:17:41,990 --> 00:17:46,230 and we'll have a stronger global population to be able to, 284 00:17:46,750 --> 00:17:48,830 to keep us going in perpetuity. 285 00:17:49,710 --> 00:17:55,510 I want you back. I want you to be here for future generations. 286 00:17:55,510 --> 00:17:57,150 That's what I really want. 287 00:17:57,350 --> 00:17:58,590 And I think it's possible. 288 00:17:59,950 --> 00:18:03,430 Abrahams, PhD work focuses on shoreline management. 289 00:18:03,710 --> 00:18:07,910 In addition to the science, he and Marianne also work to create science 290 00:18:07,910 --> 00:18:12,630 outreach projects, meet with community leaders and policy makers to raise awareness 291 00:18:12,630 --> 00:18:15,630 of the struggle of the American eels in the Saint Lawrence River. 292 00:18:18,510 --> 00:18:23,670 It's a very, very ugly story, and I think a lot of the ugliness was placed 293 00:18:23,670 --> 00:18:27,310 on the eels as the ugly animal, the ugly fish. 294 00:18:27,670 --> 00:18:32,660 But really, the ugliness is coming from the industry and what we're doing to the eel. 295 00:18:33,140 --> 00:18:36,700 Stephanie Hildebrand is a photographer and documentarian in Cornwall, 296 00:18:36,740 --> 00:18:37,460 Ontario. 297 00:18:38,420 --> 00:18:42,820 We started getting a lot of reports from fishermen on the river, 298 00:18:42,820 --> 00:18:46,140 about like hundreds of dead eels on the bottom of the river. 299 00:18:46,140 --> 00:18:48,820 And it wasn't the first time that we get reports like that. 300 00:18:48,820 --> 00:18:53,740 But for the first time in 2022, we saw it for ourselves and it was really, 301 00:18:53,740 --> 00:18:54,900 really shocking. 302 00:18:54,940 --> 00:18:58,620 What follows here is a pretty graphic description of dying eels. 303 00:18:59,540 --> 00:19:02,300 She was paralyzed, kind of like from the back end. 304 00:19:02,340 --> 00:19:07,260 Like the front end could still kind of swim, but the back end was not following. 305 00:19:08,020 --> 00:19:14,900 It was super sad. This was probably the first eel photo that I took. 306 00:19:15,220 --> 00:19:18,860 She's floating with her belly up and kind of some of the bellies sticking out of the 307 00:19:18,860 --> 00:19:23,060 water. So essentially, like her entire tail is just kind of shredded 308 00:19:23,580 --> 00:19:27,500 and the tips just kind of hanging down. 309 00:19:27,700 --> 00:19:34,210 She was dead. Yeah, but I think we've we've found some that are in that exact shape and 310 00:19:34,210 --> 00:19:37,010 they're still alive. Yeah, it was just super shocking. 311 00:19:37,010 --> 00:19:40,730 And I remember having nightmares about it. 312 00:19:40,770 --> 00:19:43,210 Like it was really like it was awful. 313 00:19:43,570 --> 00:19:48,650 There's a record from the 70s where the energy company came to clean the piles of 314 00:19:48,650 --> 00:19:49,850 dead eels like it was. 315 00:19:50,450 --> 00:19:53,690 It was thousands of pounds of dead eels, you know? 316 00:19:53,770 --> 00:19:55,250 So this this is nothing. 317 00:19:55,770 --> 00:20:00,250 So you could imagine the smell and just how many eels there were. 318 00:20:00,250 --> 00:20:03,850 And that now actually, like we're seeing less and less and less dead 319 00:20:03,890 --> 00:20:06,370 eels, but it's because there's less eels. 320 00:20:20,450 --> 00:20:24,770 One of the scientists from the River Institute offered to take us out on a boat to 321 00:20:24,810 --> 00:20:27,120 see the dam and the river for ourselves. 322 00:20:29,360 --> 00:20:31,440 I have so many layers on the boat. 323 00:20:31,480 --> 00:20:33,080 Motor was frozen to start. 324 00:20:33,080 --> 00:20:35,600 They ran hot water from a tea kettle through it. 325 00:20:35,640 --> 00:20:37,560 I mean, the whole boat's full of ice right now. 326 00:20:38,040 --> 00:20:39,600 Oh, a lot of it's coming out now. 327 00:20:39,640 --> 00:20:41,000 Okay, there we go. Yeah. 328 00:20:41,120 --> 00:20:44,680 Then all we had to do was put on giant orange survival suits. 329 00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:46,600 The kind that inflate. 330 00:20:46,600 --> 00:20:48,840 If you fall in and will keep you alive for, like, 331 00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:52,360 an hour. Oh, my gosh, I feel like we're going to Antarctica. 332 00:20:52,400 --> 00:20:52,880 I know. 333 00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:04,400 Yeah. Perfect. Okay. So you can see here's our position here. 334 00:21:04,760 --> 00:21:07,000 So we're actually it's taking a second, but we're going to go up this way. 335 00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:10,240 This is Matt Windle, a research scientist at the River Institute. 336 00:21:10,280 --> 00:21:11,600 He's our captain for the day. 337 00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:14,280 The river is partially frozen. 338 00:21:14,280 --> 00:21:18,120 So in addition to survival suits, Matt is wearing ski goggles. 339 00:21:18,120 --> 00:21:19,560 And I'm wearing a ski mask. 340 00:21:20,680 --> 00:21:23,680 All right, so I'll just kind of bring it up gradually to speed. So if you need to hang on 341 00:21:23,680 --> 00:21:25,510 to anything you can hang on to. 342 00:21:28,630 --> 00:21:33,270 The damn cuts a thick grey line between the blue sky and the glassy river. 343 00:21:33,430 --> 00:21:36,350 We see it in the distance for a while before we get close. 344 00:21:37,510 --> 00:21:43,110 To our left of us is. This is Cornwall Island and that's part of Akwesasne. 345 00:21:43,470 --> 00:21:46,870 I'll stop at the the location where the eels keep piling up. 346 00:21:47,710 --> 00:21:49,430 I don't think we'll see any because it's. 347 00:21:49,430 --> 00:21:53,270 It's been a while since they would have been migrating back down, 348 00:21:53,270 --> 00:21:59,830 but you never know. Lots of eel, injured eels and dying eels and dead eels 349 00:21:59,830 --> 00:22:04,710 have been accumulating just on this upward slope here. 350 00:22:05,310 --> 00:22:07,950 And we call it the eel pile. 351 00:22:08,910 --> 00:22:11,870 Their bellies are white, so when they're upside down. 352 00:22:12,310 --> 00:22:14,550 Is that one over there? Yeah. 353 00:22:14,590 --> 00:22:16,390 Oh, we're looking for dead eels right now. 354 00:22:16,430 --> 00:22:18,110 Yeah. In the water. 355 00:22:18,150 --> 00:22:22,710 We just found one. Okay. 356 00:22:24,820 --> 00:22:25,460 Can you see it? 357 00:22:27,380 --> 00:22:32,420 Oh, wow. Okay. It looks big from here, that's for sure. 358 00:22:32,940 --> 00:22:36,220 There are over a meter long. The the larger mature ones, 359 00:22:37,940 --> 00:22:39,660 they can be over £10, actually. 360 00:22:42,260 --> 00:22:46,380 We have the largest and oldest eels in all of North America, 361 00:22:46,380 --> 00:22:50,180 in the Saint Lawrence River and Great Lakes and the Ottawa River system. 362 00:22:51,580 --> 00:22:54,740 Finding a dead eel this time of year was unexpected. 363 00:22:55,180 --> 00:22:58,380 They migrate during the summer, and it's early spring still, 364 00:22:58,380 --> 00:23:02,660 so it's possible this eel was preserved since then, 365 00:23:02,660 --> 00:23:12,660 but we don't know. And now it's time to leave Cornwall and drive the last leg of the 366 00:23:12,660 --> 00:23:16,700 trip. Oh, we still have an hour and 14 minutes. 367 00:23:16,780 --> 00:23:18,540 Somehow I feel like it keeps getting longer. 368 00:23:18,580 --> 00:23:20,940 I need to tell you about the final transformation of eel. 369 00:23:23,170 --> 00:23:25,850 So do you want me to do the song? 370 00:23:26,610 --> 00:23:27,050 Okay. 371 00:23:29,530 --> 00:23:30,610 Transformers. 372 00:23:31,370 --> 00:23:33,050 Eels in disguise. 373 00:23:35,170 --> 00:23:39,130 I think for copyright purposes, we have to call them like eel formers. 374 00:23:41,370 --> 00:23:42,530 Fish shifters. 375 00:23:43,290 --> 00:23:47,330 As they start their migration, the eels basically go through puberty getting 376 00:23:47,330 --> 00:23:51,730 reproductively mature, stopping digestion, growing their eyes huge 377 00:23:51,730 --> 00:23:54,730 and using their fat reserves to make this long journey. 378 00:23:55,610 --> 00:23:59,490 So they're just getting their reproductive organs and like their body is telling them 379 00:23:59,490 --> 00:24:01,410 like, hey girl, it's time to mate. 380 00:24:02,330 --> 00:24:05,250 And then they can't even like, have a special little treat. 381 00:24:05,290 --> 00:24:06,170 No more snacks. 382 00:24:06,610 --> 00:24:10,810 And for us mere humans, we have 214 miles of driving to our final 383 00:24:10,810 --> 00:24:15,570 stop. Quebec City. Here we're meeting with Jean-Francois Dumont, 384 00:24:15,610 --> 00:24:20,010 a biologist and the American Eel management coordinator for the Quebec Ministry of 385 00:24:20,010 --> 00:24:21,410 Environment and Wildlife. 386 00:24:22,250 --> 00:24:23,890 Can you like, just gesture for us? 387 00:24:23,930 --> 00:24:33,090 Like tell us You know, like they're going to come from here they 388 00:24:33,090 --> 00:24:33,610 come. 389 00:24:34,370 --> 00:24:34,930 Sorry. 390 00:24:35,370 --> 00:24:36,450 I don't know where we are. 391 00:24:37,250 --> 00:24:39,410 Michigan is in that direction. 392 00:24:40,530 --> 00:24:42,570 We're standing by the Saint Lawrence River. 393 00:24:42,570 --> 00:24:48,170 And look, I, I got a little turned around, but but we're close to Quebec City where the 394 00:24:48,170 --> 00:24:53,010 river is narrow. And all of this water has to come from upstream from Lake Ontario and 395 00:24:53,010 --> 00:24:55,930 Niagara Falls and beyond to the rest of the Great Lakes. 396 00:24:56,250 --> 00:25:05,890 This is a really a lot of water, more than five 6000 cubic meter per second. 397 00:25:06,250 --> 00:25:08,970 But it will soon open up and flow out to the Atlantic. 398 00:25:08,970 --> 00:25:11,530 And with it the mature eels and. 399 00:25:11,530 --> 00:25:15,010 Understanding the movements of the mature eels is just one of the many things that 400 00:25:15,010 --> 00:25:19,560 Jean-Francois is working on with his collaborators across the region nicknamed the 401 00:25:19,560 --> 00:25:24,960 Fantastic Nine. In one example, they capture the tagged eels in tidal traps 402 00:25:24,960 --> 00:25:29,240 in the river, and they scan the tags to know which ones went where. 403 00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:34,160 This kind of tracking information is important for understanding eel behavior and 404 00:25:34,160 --> 00:25:36,040 natural migratory patterns. 405 00:25:36,520 --> 00:25:43,520 And actually what is good is that we observe a kind of stability. 406 00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:46,400 We are on a flatbed period each year. 407 00:25:46,400 --> 00:25:55,160 We have a plus or minus one, 175,000 eels that are joining the Sargasso 408 00:25:55,160 --> 00:25:55,400 Sea. 409 00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,760 Okay. So it's stable, but it's low. 410 00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:02,160 Yeah. We are we are on the, the, the bottom. 411 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:06,600 Jean-francois and his team also work on otolith shape and chemistry. 412 00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:10,320 He describes the otolith as a black box recorder for the fish. 413 00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:15,640 It's a calcified structure in their ear that lays down a daily mineral layer like a tree 414 00:26:15,680 --> 00:26:16,080 ring. 415 00:26:16,470 --> 00:26:23,110 The chemical component for each layer are related to the water where they are living. 416 00:26:23,110 --> 00:26:26,790 So that's what. It's a very powerful tool. 417 00:26:26,830 --> 00:26:34,830 The outlet can give you a signal about the water where the eel grows, 418 00:26:34,830 --> 00:26:41,070 but you cannot have other information about what happened in the Sargasso Sea. 419 00:26:41,230 --> 00:26:42,470 Eels are mysterious. 420 00:26:43,070 --> 00:26:46,630 And now there's one last moment of surprise for us to share. 421 00:26:46,630 --> 00:26:48,350 Back with Rebecca, my editor. 422 00:26:48,350 --> 00:26:51,150 We do this whole interview with him, and he's telling us all this really cool 423 00:26:51,150 --> 00:26:54,710 stuff about their biology and how scientists are working to track them. 424 00:26:54,710 --> 00:26:57,790 And so I keep recording and we walk back out to my car. 425 00:26:58,310 --> 00:27:02,110 They are everywhere. The problem is upstream. 426 00:27:03,150 --> 00:27:04,190 But the reason, you know. 427 00:27:04,790 --> 00:27:07,150 Oh wait, they stay here. 428 00:27:07,150 --> 00:27:08,550 They don't go to Lake Ontario. 429 00:27:09,310 --> 00:27:09,990 Exactly. 430 00:27:10,030 --> 00:27:17,180 And I'm like, what? And we're just at this point in Quebec City where the eels have free 431 00:27:17,220 --> 00:27:18,540 safe passage to go out. 432 00:27:18,540 --> 00:27:20,100 There's. There's no dams yet. 433 00:27:21,500 --> 00:27:23,700 And my first thought is like, I can't wait to tell. 434 00:27:23,740 --> 00:27:27,980 Jody and he's like, okay, bye bye bye bye bye. 435 00:27:28,020 --> 00:27:28,700 Thank you. 436 00:27:29,140 --> 00:27:29,780 Thank you. 437 00:27:29,940 --> 00:27:32,420 I start a new recording. 438 00:27:32,500 --> 00:27:38,100 This is ambient sound for the pier. 439 00:27:41,180 --> 00:27:47,220 This is actually just me excitedly walking back to Jody to tell her the good news about 440 00:27:47,220 --> 00:27:48,460 the river eels. 441 00:27:51,780 --> 00:27:52,420 Oh, running. 442 00:27:53,860 --> 00:27:54,660 She was running. 443 00:27:54,700 --> 00:27:55,340 I ran. 444 00:27:57,740 --> 00:28:01,140 Guess what? Okay, right. 445 00:28:01,140 --> 00:28:05,100 As we were like saying goodbye, we were like talking about just eels. 446 00:28:05,140 --> 00:28:08,980 I don't know, I don't remember. Naturally he said something like, 447 00:28:09,020 --> 00:28:14,250 yeah, well, you know, out here we have like so many eels and. 448 00:28:18,650 --> 00:28:25,570 Like there are no dams between where we are now and like all the way out there, 449 00:28:25,610 --> 00:28:28,530 right. There are plenty of female eels who come here and decide, 450 00:28:28,530 --> 00:28:31,010 for whatever reason, not to continue their journey. 451 00:28:31,010 --> 00:28:33,410 They stay and they live their whole lives here. Jody. 452 00:28:34,730 --> 00:28:37,370 Oh my God. I've never been so happy. 453 00:28:39,650 --> 00:28:44,770 Oh my God. Like, I mean, literally the last thing. 454 00:28:45,850 --> 00:28:48,050 It's hopeful. Oh my God. 455 00:28:48,050 --> 00:28:50,090 I want to cry like tears. 456 00:28:50,090 --> 00:28:50,330 Of. 457 00:28:50,330 --> 00:28:54,810 Happiness. Oh, sorry. Sorry. 458 00:28:55,770 --> 00:28:58,250 Jody has set up this, like, elaborate time lapse, 459 00:28:58,250 --> 00:29:00,530 and I have just run into her set up. 460 00:29:00,810 --> 00:29:02,370 And then she has gotten so excited. 461 00:29:02,370 --> 00:29:05,250 About what? I've just told her that now we're, like, hugging and we're, like, 462 00:29:05,410 --> 00:29:07,610 knocking the tripods over. 463 00:29:09,090 --> 00:29:13,360 That's so sweet. Oh, thank God you got some good news. 464 00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,120 I know it's a complicated piece of news. 465 00:29:16,680 --> 00:29:21,120 If an eel stops earlier in the river, she might not get as big or produce as many 466 00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:24,520 eggs. But she avoids added dam danger. 467 00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,920 American eels make an incredible journey twice in their life, 468 00:29:27,920 --> 00:29:30,680 moving from open ocean to freshwater and back again. 469 00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,880 The odds are stacked against them, increasingly so with climate change and other 470 00:29:34,880 --> 00:29:39,600 human impacts. But animals that can travel thousands of miles while basically going 471 00:29:39,600 --> 00:29:44,720 through puberty on no snacks at all can probably do anything given the chance. 472 00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:48,480 The problem is that they're not currently getting much of one, 473 00:29:48,840 --> 00:29:50,440 and they're not suffering alone. 474 00:29:50,440 --> 00:29:54,360 They're a symptom of wider environmental issues in North America. 475 00:29:55,560 --> 00:29:58,320 American eels have been around for millions of years. 476 00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:02,400 The real story starts before humans, maybe even before North America, 477 00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:04,320 because eels are slippery. 478 00:30:04,600 --> 00:30:09,280 Unbothered by space and time seeming to exist outside of what we think we know about how 479 00:30:09,430 --> 00:30:12,630 ocean's evolution and even bodies function. 480 00:30:13,470 --> 00:30:18,270 Kate Furby and Jodie Westrich reported and produced this episode with editing from me, 481 00:30:18,310 --> 00:30:21,230 Vincent Duffy, Dustin Dwyer and Jodie Westrich. 482 00:30:21,430 --> 00:30:24,470 Special thanks to Randy karst, Jean-Francois Dumont, 483 00:30:24,710 --> 00:30:28,830 Danielle Labonté, and Stephanie Hildebrand for additional photos and footage. 484 00:30:29,390 --> 00:30:32,910 Support for the production of this podcast was made possible by the Charles Stewart Mott 485 00:30:32,910 --> 00:30:35,590 Foundation as part of its Great Lakes News Collaborative. 486 00:30:35,950 --> 00:30:37,790 Music by blue Dot sessions. 487 00:30:37,950 --> 00:30:41,590 I'm Rebecca Williams. Beyond the shore is a production of Michigan Public. 488 00:30:41,630 --> 00:30:45,150 You can find all of our podcasts at Michigan public.org slash.