Marine Researcher Finds ‘Massive' American Eel on Texas Beach

A Texas marine researcher found a big surprise during a beach survey last week on Mustang Island.

Jace Tunnell, reserve director at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute in Port Aransas, shared a video on his YouTube channel of an American eel he found while counting birds and looking for stranded sea turtles.

"This is basically as big as they get," Tunnell exclaimed in his video. "This thing is massive, it's got to be like four feet long."

During this most recent trip, Tunnell said he found the eel near the high tide line early in the morning and that because of its size, he thought the fish was a female. He added that females often die after spawning offshore where they can lay up to four million eggs at one time.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said American eels are freshwater fish that primarily live in rivers and estuaries but migrate to the ocean to spawn. While the females can grow up to four feet in length, the males are generally much smaller at 1 and a half feet.

Tunnell said the smaller eels are often used by anglers as bait. This one, he noted, was far too big for that.

Tunnell said it's not common to see them washed up on the Texas coast and that the eel was only the second one he's found in the last five years. The other, he said, wasn't quite as large.

He added that the species' life cycle has been affected by dams blocking access to rivers and estuaries where they live when not spawning. Tunnell said there are some creative ideas out there on how dams could be modified to allow the migration of eels and other species that move between rivers and oceans.

"Thinking about how we can bring those types of ideas to reality would be a great initiative for protecting species such as this," Tunnell said.

Tunnell conducts weekly beach surveys along Mustang Island and said he often posts interesting finds on his YouTube and Facebook pages. On recent surveys, Tunnell shared videos after finding a deceased roseate spoonbill, some cool sea shells and an octopus. He even rescued a small hammerhead shark.

• Texas Parks and Wildlife: American Eel
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service: American Eel

Jace Tunnell, University of Texas Marine Science Institute