Category:American eels

The American eel (Anguilla rostrata) is an endangered species under the Ontario Endangered Species Act, 2007 (ESA).

American eels have a complex life cycle. The eels have a single breeding population, they are born, spawn and die in the ocean, and some migrate to freshwater to mature. The species has a vast range on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean from Venezuela to Greenland and Iceland. The eels migrate great distances in all life stages, some individuals travelling as far as 6,000 km.

The species’ native Canadian distribution includes all fresh water, estuaries and coastal marine waters that are accessible from the Atlantic Ocean. Juvenile eels (known as elver) migrate through the St.Lawrence River to Lake Ontario, where they mature into silver eels and migrate back to the Atlantic Ocean, to spawn in the Sargasso Sea.

More than 25,000 dams block the eels’ freshwater range, from Florida to Ontario.