A researcher near Rockport, Texas, got to show off a 4-foot-long American eel that washed up on the beach. Jace Tunnell, Reserve Director at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, stumbled upon the eel. “This is basically as big as they get,” he said.
Tunnell showed off the female eel in a video posted to YouTube. While female American eels can lay up to four million eggs, the species is still endangered. Dam building in particular has had large negative impacts on eel populations, according to Tunnell.
“Whenever all the dams and stuff started coming in, the life cycle of these fish, of going up the rivers, coming down the rivers, and going way out into the ocean to be able to have their eggs, with those dams on the rivers they weren’t able to do the things they would normally do.”
Prior to finding this eel, the largest eel to be caught in Texas was three-and-a-half feet long.
