July 12, 2021 — The numbers, brought to you by Eric Hutchins and his volunteers from their annual census of eel movement along the Mill Brook, have been down for several years.
Not in 2021. This summer, the mighty Mill Brook has exploded into the eel-formational super highway.
The year began promisingly, with 350 eels counted from April 1 to the second week of June. But no sooner had the first wave abated than another began and the Mill Brook was en fuego.
Hutchins, a NOAA Fisheries biologist and Gulf of Maine restoration coordinator, said the streak included several hundred-eel days. As of June 29, the total count was 985 — including a jump of 402 eels in a single week.
Eel-lectrifying!
Now the really important stuff: The Eel Raffle fundraiser, where ticket buyers tried to get closest to the pin on the final number of eels counted between April 1 and Columbus Day.
“Of the original 58 raffle tickets sold, only 14 are left viable with total count guesses over 1,000,” Hutchins wrote in a June 29 email. “The next closet ‘guess’ is 1,033. But that might fall later today. Things are fast and furious this year at the eel trap.”
Where they always respect their elvers