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Learn with faculty and peers to forge your career. Your next starts now. We are the Changemakers, MSU Denver. Electric yields are not actually yields, but I digress. It's Wednesday, September 4th, and you're listening to Science Friday. OnScifire Producer Shashana Bucksbam. Despite existing on planet earth for some 200 million
years, yields are still rather mysterious creatures. For instance, scientists still aren't sure exactly how they spawn, but all of those unanswered questions haven't stopped humans from wanting to eat them. And a lucrative criminal underworld has risen up to poach baby yields from the wild for exactly that purpose. Here's guest host Rachel Feltman with more. Joining me now to talk all about her journey into the wild world of yields is my guest.
Ellen Riepelshell, author of Slippery Beast, a true crime history with yields. She splits her time between Bremen, Maine, and Semerville, Massachusetts. Ellen, welcome to Science Friday. It's great to be here. Thanks so much, Rachel. Thanks so much for coming on. So I'll start with the most obvious question to ask someone who wrote a book all about yields, which is why yields?
Well, that's a simple question and a complicated question. So the short answer is, I didn't find yields found me, which you liked and that story behind that. I would love to know the story behind that. Okay. Well, quite a few years ago, as you mentioned, I spent about half the year on the coast of Maine. And one year my husband and I decided we needed some help with home repairs. So we hired a guy who in the book I call Sam. Sometimes he come in quite early, come
into my kitchen with a four-pack a cider and just want to talk. And he told me stories about his family and especially about his grandson who he said he wanted to teach to fish as soon as he got the money together to buy a boat. And I said, well, Sam, why don't you mix business and pleasure and buy yourself a commercial fishing license to go with that boat? And he said, well, I did do that and I would do that. But, you know, the yields.
And I said, what? What are you talking about the yields? You're afraid they're going to bite you or what? And he said, no, I'm not talking about yields big enough to bite you. I'm talking about the little yields. You know, the ones the size of your pinky finger. You know, the ones we call the glass yields or the Elvers, the baby yields. Ever since the price of those yields went through the roof, it's been dangerous down by the river.
And I said, what do you mean the price went through the roof? And he said, well, you know, they're about $2,500 a pound. Well, as you can imagine, that got me curious about the eel. And, you know, Sam left years went by. I couldn't get the eel out of my mind and I started looking into it. And I found not only where the price was a price through the roof, but the eel was a most remarkable animal. And the natural history of this animal
kind of paralleled the history of science. And I got pulled into this story as do so many people who encounter the eel. And it just wouldn't let go. Yeah. Well, there are so many absolutely fascinating eel facts in your book. But let's start with some very basic stuff. Can you give us a quick overview of the eel life cycle and why it confused scientists for so long? Yeah, the eel is such mysterious animal. No one
knew how it reproduced. So Aristotle, you know, about 2,000 years ago, he started things going with this idea that yields reproduce by spontaneous generation. Okay. And he helped us theory-ested people for, you know, almost 2,000 years. This idea that yields just reproduced out of the mud. They did not sexually reproduce, but they reproduced out of the mud. And the reason for that is because eels were everywhere and no one had ever seen an eel mating. No
one ever seen an eel egg. No one had ever seen a pregnant eel. So yeah, how and where eels breed has, of course, long been a mystery to scientists. Remind me what do we know and not know about where they spawn? Okay. Well, it is thought today that the Atlantic eel, that is the European eel and the American eel, both spawn in the Sargaso Sea, south of Bermuda. Again, it is thought no one has ever spotted a mature,
sexually mature eel in the ocean or mature eel in the ocean. And no one has ever spotted an eel egg in the wild. Okay. So we're not absolutely sure of this, but it is thought that they spawn in the Sargaso Sea. In the case of the American eel, which is the eels we were talking about in Maine, it spawned in the Sargaso Sea and then it grows into a
larval stage. And that larva, which is maybe 3 to 5 inches long, travels all the way from the Sargaso Sea up through the eastern seaboard in the case of the manials up to the main coast. And as it crosses toward the coast, it becomes what we call a glacial. They look like little transparent toothpicks. And then as it tends to come into the freshwater area, as it starts
to do that, it becomes an alver, becomes pigmented. And some eel stay in the ocean and some continue up the rivers and settle down into lakes or other place, other waterways, where it just eats. It becomes a yellow eel and it just eats and eats and grows and grows and it can stay there for as long as up to 40 years. And then after it reaches a certain point, somehow it knows to return to its spawning place in the Sargaso Sea. It becomes what
we call a silver eel. That's the last stage in this development. And it retraces its steps all the way back to a spawning ground, where spawns once or maybe twice, we're not sure, and then dies. And that's the life cycle of the eel. So you can imagine how typical it was for ancient scholars to have any idea of how the eel reproduced. Wow, yeah. And as you were just describing, you know, eels have to migrate thousands
of miles. Do we know how they do that navigation? Oh, wow. Well, that was such a controversial question. I mean, some folks thought, some time to thought it was all a faction because eels have an incredible sense of smell. Some felt that they were following, you know,
gravitational forces from the moon. There were all different theories. Most recently, it's been thought that they have a magnetic sense, that they have particles around their nose area, the front of their face, that are magnetically sensitive, and that they're drawn by the magnetic fields toward their destination. Right? This again is controversial. I went to Norway to discuss this with a scientist who was most closely associated with this
theory. Her name is Carolyn Durath. She's an amazing scientist. And she has a laboratory there where she did the experiments that resulted in this conclusion. It seems to be probably the most likely theory they have a certain magnetic sense eels do that draws them to their destinations in both directions, both from the cigars to sea and back to the cigars to sea. WNYC Studios is supported by Applecard. You'll love Applecard. It's everything a credit card
should be, and more. Earn up to 3% daily cash back on every purchase, which can automatically earn interest when you open a high yield savings account through Applecard. Apply for Applecard in the wallet app. Subject to credit approval. Savings is available to Applecard owners, subject to eligibility. Applecard and savings by Goldman Sachs Bank USA Salt Lake City Branch member
FDIC, terms and more at Applecard.com. Support for Science Friday comes from the Alfred Peace Loan Foundation, working to enhance public understanding of science, technology, and economics in the modern world. So, personally, I had the pleasure dubious honor of helping to catch some wild eels for research back when I was an undergrad, but I think most folks these days have their first yield encounter when they see maybe Unaugiate a Japanese restaurant or maybe at the feast of
the seven fishes if you have our particularly ambitious Italian grandma. But like other types of seafood they've been overfished. So, what are the statuses of the three populations of eels, the American, European, and Japanese eel? Well, exactly. So, there are about 820 different species of eels, and the ones that we think about, the freshwater eels, there are maybe 18 different species, and the most commercially
viable ones are the Japanese eel, the American eel, and the European eel. Now, all those eels have declined to number dramatically since the 1970s. It's thought that the Japanese eel is declined by as much as 95%, though European eel by as much as 95%, and the American eel by about 50%. So, as you can see, the Japanese and European eel are both critically endangered. The American eel is not classified as critically endangered, but many scientists
believe that it's on the verge of becoming quite endangered. It's certainly under threat. Yeah. Even going into your book as something of an eel enthusiast, one thing that really blew my mind was your deep dive into the international wild eel trade. So, how is it that baby eels or elvers from Maine end up on eel farms in China? Yeah. So, there's an elver season. So, elvers are baby eels. Other about 2,500 of these
eels to a pound to give you some idea of how small they are. These eels are caught in the estuaries, generally or in the rivers of Maine, in the case of the main eel. The only legal place to catch elvers in the United States is the state of Maine. There's a very small fishery in South Carolina, but it's really not significant. So, the only significant elver fishery in the United States is the state of Maine. So, they're caught on the coast during
a elver season, which starts in March and usually ends in June. And then they are shipped by and large. They are shipped to farms in Asia, generally China, to be grown up to market size, takes six months to a year to grow them to market size, after which they are slaughtered and prepared and sent back to the United States for sale. So, it has the supply chain for the American eel in the United States is this circuitous and dramatic, really, as the
life cycle chain of the American eel. And in that process, as you can imagine, there's lots of room for slippage, poachers, all sorts of things. International cartels are involved in this criminal cartels, organized crime. It is the most costly wildlife crime on the planet. It's hard to imagine this, that elvers, not tiger paws, not ivory from elephants,
elvers are the world's costliest wildlife crime. Wow. And can you say a little bit more about what it is about the eel industry and the supply chain that lend itself to criminal enterprises? Really, what it comes down to is money. Our other big product in Maine, of course, is lobster. Elvers are about 400 times the value of lobster. It's very, very valuable and quite relatively easy to ship and smuggle. And so, unlike an elephant,
elvers are very, very small. So, that has really brought in all sorts of criminal elements into this industry. It's, as everyone told me, you know, eel's are a dirty business, always have been. But since the price went through the roof, it's gotten very dangerous as well as dirty. And speaking of eel crime, you interviewed a kind of notorious eel kingpin named Bill Sheldon for the book. Can you tell me more about Operation Broken Glass?
Bill Sheldon is such an interesting guy. He's literally an expert on the eel, on the American eel. He has a degree in wildlife management. He's also a grandfather. He's not a young man. And Bill was the biggest eel dealer in the state of Maine. And unfortunately, as Bill himself would admit, he got greedy and he got involved in a coaching ring that involved six states up and down the East Coast that encouraged the illegal fishing of
eel's alvers. And let's make sure we understand this. It's the baby eel that we're interested in, illegal fishing in states, you know, where it was not illegal to fish alvers. And the
alvers were then laundered through the state of Maine with Bill's help. And this Operation Broken Glass was a four year federal investigation that ended in April of 2014 with the arrest of about 110 criminals up and down the East Coast. 22 people were imprisoned, including Bill Sheldon, who I interviewed about a month and a half after he got out of the state
penitentiary. So unfortunately, with prices that high, even people with expertise and long experience of honest fishing of alvers got pulled into the trap of illegal activities. But I'm sure some folks are wondering, you know, why don't we just catch and eat adults instead? But as you share in the book, wild caught adult eels actually taste pretty bad. Can you explain why? Yes, well, eels, as I've mentioned, can live a very, very long time.
The ideal way for eel, especially in something like sushi, which is what the preparation that Americans prefer. Those eels are small, relatively small. And you have to catch them at just the right time to get them that size. And that's virtually impossible. You really can't time that in the wild. The other factor is, as you said, they do live a long time and they're bio accumulators. Eels are very, very fatty and they store all sorts of things
in that fat. And many river bottoms where they are nocturnal animals. During the day, they burrow in the mud and absorb all sorts of toxins and unhealthy materials from that river bed. Not only are you exposed to those toxins, but it doesn't taste very good. So many Americans do not like the taste of wild eel. And I had the opportunity to taste it myself in Norway. I did taste wild eel. I'm a big fan of domesticated eel or cultivated eel.
I was really shocked at the taste of wild eel. You know, I'd sort of describe it as almost like a wet sponge taste. It's really, really not something that many of us would really enjoy. Now, I've spoken to people who really do like it. There's various countries, you know, certainly have a tradition of eating wild eel. But it really depends very, very much on where you get it, how old it is. All these factors that you really can't control.
So cultivated eel is what the vast majority of eel eaten around the world is. It's not wild eel. Right. And given everything you learned about the bad actors in the eel trade and the threats that eels face, should people just avoid eating eel altogether? You know, that is such an interesting question and a complicated one. And many scientists told me people should not avoid eating eel because if we lose it as a commercial product,
we're going to lose interest in it altogether. They would prefer that people continue to eat eel in moderation, but kind of know where it comes from and be mindful of where it comes from, just like so many things we think about eating, right? If we can do that, if we can balance, you know, our concerns, our environmental concerns with our hunger for eel will be better off than if we just simply stop eating it. Ellen, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you very much, Rachel.
Ellen Ruple Shell is the author of Slippery Beast, a true crime history with eels. She splits her time between Bremen, Maine and Somerville, Massachusetts. If you want to read an excerpt of the book, go to science Friday.com slash eels. That science Friday.com slash eel. That's just about all the time we have for today. Lots of folks help make the show happen including deep uterus. Sandy Roberts. Beth Rammie. John Demkoski. Tomorrow, dogs who are trained to sniff out spotter and lantern
flies, plus new research about the origins of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. I'm Sifre producer Shishana Bucksbaum. Catch you next time.