North American freshwater eels are born in the ocean, and as adults, swim from the Atlantic coast to the Sargasso Sea south of Bermuda to spawn. The larva contains a drop of oil that allows it to float to ocean surface, where it drifts with currents and feeds on microscopic life. As they grow, larvae swim or drift towards land near the eastern Atlantic coast and after about a year, develop into elvers, which look like small adult eels. Millions of elvers swim into eastern North America s rivers in the spring. The males stay in the ocean awaiting the females, which swim upstream to live in freshwater rivers and ponds before returning to the sea to breed.
Males are about two thirds the size of females.
In the wild, approximately 0.7 per cent of eels survives past the first year. It s minimum impact industry, because we re not fishing in any areas where there is a commercial fishery. We re basically just taking an unused resource from a very small area. We only need a small quantity to run an operation of this size. But the bottom line is, it s sustainable forever.