The Sinuous Eel

The Live Eel Cam Broadcast, From Montour Preserve In Washingtonville

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 ABOUT THE SINUOUS EEL

 Peculiar Among Fishes Will Bite Long After It Has Been Decapitated.

Reprinted in the Danville Morning News, July 10 1908

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 Eels are peculiar even among fishes. A strange and mysterious race, the difficulty of killing them is, not the least of their peculiarities. Very many of us have been annoyed by the ordinary eel that has seized our worm and then tangled up our line in its slimy rolls.

You may cut off the head of an eel in the manner recommended by the S. P. C. A. and leave its body full of squirms and wriggles, for the eel is a hateful and uncanny creature.

I have been told that the true method is first to cut off the eel's tail and that after this the severance of the head brings all life and movement to an end. As to this I cannot saw for I only heard this recently and I've not since had to deal with a sinuous eel. A correspondent has cited an instance of a conger left apparently dead for twenty four hours on the beach, which then bit three fingers from the hand of a small boy who came to handle it. I can well believe this. I shall not easily forgot the eerie shock which I had on a certain occasion in ales, l had caught a large eel on a night line set for pike.

We had severed his head and left him for some hours on the bank, leaving a good hook in his gullet. In the evening ho was presented to a small boy, who bore him off in triumph as a supper dish. Half an hour later the boy's mother appeared, with some concern and indignation, to relate that the head had bitten the boy severely when he tried to remove the excellent hook. And this was no conger! The occurrence seemed to me like the horror in one of Kipling's most weird stories of uncanny horror. Whether these posthumous wounds by eels betoken the remnants of life in their severed portions or a mere mechanical flicker of the nervous system only the biologist could say.

And perhaps he would be only making a guess. 

The Danville Eel Weir

The Sunbury Eel Weir

Van Wagner's excellent video on the eel weir in Danville.  His son has taken excellent drone photos, which show it even better than wading out into the river to see it.

The Book Of Eels, by Patrik  Svennson is an absolutely fascinating read about how much researchers have never been able to learn about eels.  If you have Amazon Prime, it's free to read through the Kindle App - https://amzn.to/3Oe3V8z

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MORE ABOUT EELS

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From the Susquehanna River Basin Site:

https://www.srbc.gov/our-work/pamphlets/american-eels.html