recent newpaper article I came across (FYI)

http://www.mvgazette.com/news/2005/07/08/american_eel.php

I know a woman who is helping to write a fisheries management plan (FMP) for the American eel. When I spoke to her last, she didn't feel as though they were endangered, but I did get wind that they're having a hard time getting up fish ladders on the dams that do have them. There are plans for fish ladders that have rods spaced relatively close together so the eels can slither up, as they can't make the larger spaced intervals that the flat dividers are currently located at. It's been recorded that eels also crawl up on land and around dams, which can't be an easy task, but good for them! Not that fish ladders will be the panacea for the declining eel population, as there are other factors in play...

The link to the USFWS site regarding the listing of American eels as endangered is as follows:

http://www.fws.gov/northeast/ameel/

The link under "for more information" entitled "90-Day Finding on a Petition To List the American Eel as Threatened or Endangered" has most of the information you could ever want, as well as an email address to contact the UWFWS and NMFS with comments regarding its status. For our sake, I hope they don't get listed, but for the eels' sake, I hope they do get afforded some sort of regulation and protection.