Scientist once spent months, even lifetimes, hunting for such animals. But the collection method, using DNA traces, allows them to swiftly complete their quests in the lab.
As a kid growing up on Bald Top Mountain above the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, Van Wagner would look down during times of low water to see a mysterious âVâ rising from the bottom, pointing downstream.
Later, he learned it was an old eel weir built from stacked river rocks, a simple but effective way to funnel and catch migrating American eels. As the eels swam downstream, the walls of the weir funneled them to a narrow point where they could be captured in traps or speared more easily.
As Wagner shows in a recent drone video, the two walls of the weir rise about 3 to 5 feet from the river bottom. The weir is about one-eighth of a mile wide at the top of the V.
As a kid growing up on Bald Top Mountain above the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, Van Wagner would look down during times of low water to see a mysterious âVâ rising from the bottom, pointing downstream.
Later, he learned it was an old eel weir built from stacked river rocks, a simple but effective way to funnel and catch migrating American eels. As the eels swam downstream, the walls of the weir funneled them to a narrow point where they could be captured in traps or speared more easily.
This old stone eel weir in the Susquehanna River, near Danville in northcentral Pennsylvania, is said to have been built by Native Americans.