A Trump win could complicate conservation efforts for the American eel in New York

If you saw an American eel in the water, you might think it was a snake due to its tubular shape, but it’s actually a slimy fish. American eels are one of the depleted species that are a focus of conservation initiatives in New York.

The 2024 presidential election could have big impacts on conservation efforts across the country. In New York, conservation efforts receive a good amount of federal funding, which could be on the chopping block if former President Donald Trump wins the White House. Those cuts could put the American eel – a species that plays a key role in the food chain as both predator and prey throughout New York waters, including in the Hudson, Bronx River and East rivers and the New York Harbor – at risk.

American eel populations have dropped by more than 50% in the last few decades, according to the University of Michigan. The 2011 tsunami in Japan decimated Japanese eel numbers in the country, and much of Europe banned the harvesting of European eels in 2012. That meant consumers had to look elsewhere for their fix – enter the American eel. 

It was around that time that eels were deemed a depleted species, according to the Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission, a multistate group of agency conservationists, representatives from the New York Department of Environmental Conservation among them. The Atlantic State Marine Fisheries Commission says that according to the 2023 stock assessment, the American eel population remains depleted in U.S. waters. The agency cites ​​a combination of “historical overfishing, habitat loss, food web alterations, predation, turbine mortality, environmental changes, toxins and contaminants, and disease” as reasons for the decline.

But the eels’ declining population is not new. 

“I think it’s safe to say that the last half of the 20th Century was a rough half century for eels. We saw – by many different metrics – a big decline in eels,” said Chris Bowser, a conservation educator who works with the Department of Environmental Conservation. “They no longer seem to be in freefall, but their baseline is still very low, compared to their historical highs of a hundred or more years ago.”

Federal funding helps a lot, Bowser says. The Hudson River National Estuarine Research Reserve, one of several nationwide reserves sponsored by federal funding, only exists due to a partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Cornell University and the Department of Environmental Conservation. 

“A lot of the work that we do … with eel monitoring is directly supported by that partnership,” Bowser said. “There are many federal grants that both our agency and our partners use to do studies of various fish populations.” 

The state’s partnership with Cornell University helped to connect the agency to a Federal Emergency Management Agency-sponsored program called Submerse to pair scientists with artists to raise awareness about climate change and conservation efforts like with eels.

Partnered with the estuarine research reserve is the Hudson River Estuary Program, in which New Yorkers can volunteer to help and learn about conservation efforts. Every year, volunteers including local residents, teachers, students and more get together as part of the Annual Juvenile Eel Monitoring Project. Volunteers gather young eels, also called glass eels for their transparent appearance, to count and release them in freshwater habitats upstream. More than 1 million glass eels have been transported this way. They hang out in the freshwater habitats for about 30 years before returning to the Sargasso Sea to spawn.

Federal funding – specifically, from NOAA, but from the nonprofit Wildlife Conservation Society, as well – also made possible a New York City Department of Parks and Recreation project. To assist the eels in their journey to open waters and eventually the Sargasso Sea to spawn, the agency installed a fish ladder at the East 182nd Street Dam in the Bronx River, complete with an eel passage section, as well as one for river herring – another at-risk species in the New York area – though eels sometimes jump over the dam. 

The work done in these programs help feed conservation studies worldwide, Bowser said. These partnerships and programs would not exist without federal funding.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists American eels as endangered, a designation that isn’t federally recognized. In 2015, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said that the American eel is stable and does not need protection under the Endangered Species Act, but the fisheries commission recommends continuation of conservation efforts. 

“They may not be federally endangered, but we all recognize that eels are an important part of an ecosystem, they provide food for a lot of other species, they themselves can be apex predators when they’re older,” Bowser said. “The DEC takes eel conservation very very seriously.”

Indeed, the University of Michigan notes that there have been previous unsuccessful efforts to see eels federally recognized as endangered, and that lack of designation leaves eels vulnerable. Without that protection, less funding for conservation work is available. But the inverse is also true: If funding is cut by any administration, efforts to conserve American eel populations in New York could be put at risk. 

The Trump administration also weakened the Endangered Species Act by defining “habitat” in a way that would exclude areas that can eventually support species, while the Biden administration made efforts to undo those regulatory changes and strengthen the law. 

Trump also brought forth cuts to the National Park Service and the Environmental Protection Agency. Land Conservation Cooperatives, – research centers funded by the U.S. Department of the Interior that focus on conservation – were forced to go on hiatus after Trump’s cuts. 

“When he was president and Republicans had control of Congress, they slashed the budgets for EPA and NOAA and tried to privatize the weather service. If you do that, all of the funding that goes to states, which oftentimes rely on federal grants and federal partnerships, will disappear,” says Brett Hartl, chief political strategist at the Center for Biological Diversity Action Fund.

With most national polls forecasting a tight race, the future of conservation efforts in New York could be a coin flip. A Republican win in November could lead to funding cuts to the NOAA. The Project 2025 playbook – the far-right policy blueprint written by former Trump administration officials – calls for NOAA to be “broken up and downsized” and claims that the agency is “harmful to U.S. prosperity” for raising the alarm on climate change. Harris has pinned Project 2025 on Trump for months now. Though Trump has attempted to distance himself from it, many of its authors are former members of his administration. 

“His goal is to completely dismantle NOAA, they're making no qualms about that,” Hartl said.

The vice president, on the other hand, has the current administration’s record on her side, as it announced in early October that NOAA is designating 4,500 square miles of coast as the country’s 17th national marine sanctuary. 

Hartl was clear: Judging from Trump’s first term, a Harris presidency would be better for the environment and conservation efforts. 

“A second term would just be like a completely unhinged assault on the environment,” said Hartl.