A contemporary estimate for the abundance of juvenile American Eel Anguilla rostrata attempting to migrate past a barrier in the Ottawa River

Abstract

AbstractAmerican Eel (Anguilla rostrata) travels from the Sargasso Sea to fresh waters of eastern North America and back in a lifetime, and once provided one of the most abundant eel fisheries in the world. Many American Eel populations are now at risk worldwide. Dams act as barriers to the upstream migration of juvenile American Eels, which can be partially mitigated by installing eel ladders. To inform mitigation decisions and provide baseline data, the number of eels approaching barriers should be estimated; however, estimation is difficult for this now rare and cryptic species, especially in large rivers. In St. Lawrence and Ottawa River system, American Eels are among the largest and most fecund of the species, and local populations in the Ottawa River are almost entirely composed of large, female eels. American Eel in this area has declined to less than 1% of historic abundance, yet no local population estimates are available to inform recovery strategies and management actions. We, therefore, evaluated data from an unpublished study to estimate the abundance of American Eel attempting to migrate upstream past a barrier. American Eels (n = 339) were captured at the Carillon Generating Station over 36 days (July 12, 2010–August 17, 2010). Results were fit to the POPAN Jolly‐Seber model in program MARK. Future studies could be improved by sampling throughout the migration season and deploying multiple traps spanning downstream features. While confidence intervals in the best‐fitting model were wide, the estimate nonetheless provides a baseline to inform future work and management.