Current and historical distribution of the American eel Anguilla rostrata in the countries and territories of the Wider Caribbean

Abstract

Abstract The American eel is a widely distributed, facultatively catadromous fish that is reported to range from southern Greenland to the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea. Despite such a broad distribution, our understanding of the species' biology and ecology is based on research carried out almost exclusively in Canada and the United States. As one moves south from the United States through both the Antilles and Mexico, progressively less is known about the species. Even farther south, in Central and South America, information is sufficiently scant as to raise doubt on whether or not the species occurs there at all. This study compiled available quantitative information from literature and museum records and qualitative information from other literature and personal contacts on the distribution of the American eel from Mexico, Central America, northern South America, and the Antilles, to provide the first comprehensive description of the species' historical and current distribution in the region. The results of this investigation confirm that the American eel was historically, and continues to be, widely distributed throughout the Wider Caribbean region, extending all the way to eastern Venezuela and the island of Trinidad. Furthermore, this work also addresses habitat loss and degradation, pollution, and increasing pressure from developing commercial fisheries as the major threats facing the species both locally in, and broadly throughout, the region. If effective management and conservation of the panmictic American eel is to be achieved, it is of critical importance that greater efforts be made to promote and encourage research on the species' basic ecology in the Wider Caribbean region.