HOMER — Students from the Onondaga Nation School and Whitney Point Middle School released eels into the Tioughnioga River Tuesday afternoon as part of a broader program for children to reintroduce eels into the Susquehanna River Basin.
Brad Powless, a representative of the Onondaga Nation’s Eel Clan, spoke to students from Whitney Point about the different clans and how they pass down from mother to mother.
“All these people,” Powless gestured toward the students from the Onondaga school, “We all have our own clan, and guess who gives us our clan? The moms.”
He also taught them some Onondaga words too, like “ogoñ·dé·na” which means “eel.”
Teacher JoAnne Powless spoke about her class’s connection to the project, saying, “We have a number of kids in our class that are Eel Clan, so they had a connection going into it.”
“Melissa Yearick came out from the Susquehanna Coalition, and she set it up for us. And the kids were so excited about it,” she explained.
The children had mixed reactions as they set the eels into the river via a water slide. Many were heard yelling “Go!” or “No!” or “Swim!” or “Fight!” as they watched the eels try to swim up the slide before eventually falling into the water.
“The babies are really gone,” one child said with a sad look in their eyes.
JoAnne Powless laughed at the melodramatics. “Oh my god,” she said, smiling. “They really connected with them,” she explained.
Brad Powless said he also connected with the eels. “The first time they came in, I was by the tank for like half an hour. Just watching. It was amazing.”
According to PBS Nature, American eels are one of about 800 species of eel and are listed as an endangered species that dwell in rivers, notably in the Susquehanna River basin.
A network of waterways connects Homer’s Durkee Park river water to the ocean via the Chesapeake Bay. Historically, American eels would make the journey down into the sea and back up in their lives.
“We go down to a very large dam on the Susquehanna River and the eels aren’t able to make it over the dam, so there’s an eel ladder,” said Melissa Yearick.
The Conowingo Dam, according to the Susquehanna River Basin Commission, “currently blocks American eels from ascending the Susquehanna.” The SRBC set up eel ladders, which eels will swim up and be deposited into buckets for researchers.
“Most of them are put in water trucks and moved just up above the dam and released,” said Yearick, adding, “but for this program, they line up teachers who are really excited about the opportunity to let their students engage with nature and set up tanks and distribute about 10 eels per classroom.”
For the Onondaga school, eight of the 10 eels made it to release day.
District manager for the Cortland County Soil and Water Conservation District, Amanda Barber, said both the Homer School District and the BOCES Environmental Science Careers program will take part in the program next year.
“We’re just thrilled that we’re able to have them here next year in the county and looking forward to kind of monitoring their growth and progress throughout the year,” Barber said.