The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-24)

C8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, MAY 24 , 2022

ACROSS 1 Fail to interest 5 Bundle of papers 10 Needs no hemming, say 14 “My life. My card” card co. 15 World Heritage Site in Jordan 16 Law school newbie 17 *Hunting-and- fishing official 19 Just good enough 20 Sport that made its Olympic debut in 2021 21 Personal histories 23 Supermarket conveniences 24 *End a relationship 27 Poses a question 28 Tire filler 30 Boot tip 31 Filmmaker Craven 32 ATM key 34 Like voices after a loud party 35 *Slouch 37 Audition hopeful 40 Lots and lots 41 Mont. neighbor 44 Reacted to head scritches, maybe 46 Most junk mail 47 Amanda Gorman creation 48 *Adorn with lots of bling 50 “In what way?” 51 Pandemonium 52 Lots and lots 54 Start of a story 56 “How clever of you!,” and a hint to the first words of the answers to the starred clues 59 Like kids at a magic show 60 Luxury watch 61 Romance novelist Roberts who writes mysteries as J.D. Robb 62 “Let It Go” sing- er in “Frozen”

63 Bicycle part 64 Jury __

DOWN 1 Duffel or tote 2 Sushi experience curated by the chef 3 Comments 4 Applies, as influence 5 Petty quarrel 6 Attendance answer 7 Liftoff approx. 8 Ta pas corncake 9 Tr ibute pieces by devotees 10 Shoes 11 Glands in squids and cuttlefish 12 Sweet __ 13 Crafty 18 “Now, where __ I?” 22 Mall map units 23 Crow’s call 24 First word in many a baking recipe 25 Sharp bark 26 “Harriet the __”: kid-lit classic

28 Novelist Patchett 29 Symptom targeted by an oatmeal bath 32 “Mystery solved!” 33 Street 35 Cinnamon-y rice milk drink 36 Corp. execs 37 Just right 38 Mean mutt

39 Upper arm muscle 41 Words of gratitude 42 Sweet course 43 “Yo te __” 45 Some a cappella singing 47 Central European country 49 “I’m here to help”

50 “Good” choles- terol initials 52 “Black Widow” actress Kurylenko 53 Iridescent stone 54 Rage 55 __ makhani: lentil dish 57 Acted as tour guide 58 Calendar square

LA TIMES CROSSWORD By Ella Dershowitz

MONDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION

kidspost

eels), farther west (Japanese eels) or east (European eels), for exam- ple. American eels are North America’s only species of catadro- mous fish. That is, they live in freshwater and return to saltwa- ter to spawn. By the time baby eels reach the mouth of New York’s Hudson Riv- er, or Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay, or the Mississippi River in Louisi- ana, they’ve been in the water for a year. They are two inches long, translucent and extremely strong and wiry. They next develop into elvers, then yellow eels. By about age 20, they have matured into four-foot silver eels. By that age they will have swum to the muddy bottoms of the streams that have become their longtime homes. Males will die there. Females, which live longer than males, travel more than 1,000 miles back to the Sargasso Sea. They spawn, then die. Back on the Hudson, Mount and her volunteers open the bot- tom of the fyke net’s tunnel and gently scoop out eels. They place them in a bucket and count them: 74 glass eels today. The volunteers weigh the eels and place them in a sealable plastic bag full of water. They give the eels a lift upstream, bypassing hungry fish and a wa- terfall that would take a lot of effort to climb. Although, says Mount, “eels are a really resilient species. They can swim out on land to get around barriers, as long as their skin is wet.” Mount hopes that resilience will keep eel numbers growing in coming years. And that her work with the eel counters will help scientists solve many of the eel mysteries that remain, such as their migration routes, how they spend their days and where in the Sargasso they spawn. “They have very complex life cycles,” says Mount. And there is so much more to learn about them and about how to keep the species from dis- appearing.

CHIP SAYS

On this day in 1844, Samuel Morse sent the

first telegraph. It read, “What Hath God

Wrought,” and it was it sent from

Washington, D.C., to Baltimore, Maryland.

KIDSPOST.COM Find stories about other animals threatened with extinction in our Endangered Species special report.

TODAY There may be rain, and high temperatures could climb to the middle or upper 60s. ILLUSTRATION BY DEVIN O'SHEA, 8, ARLINGTON

BY LELA NARGI

On a misty-gray afternoon in
May, four people wade into the
Hudson River. They have come to
check a large fyke net that catches
small creatures. It looks like an
open tent with a big tunnel at-
tached to one end.
It is migration season for Amer-
ican eels ( Anguilla rostrata ). This
net, and 13 others up and down
the 315-mile river, are snaring
young “glass” eels so that Sarah
Mount and college and high
school volunteers can count them.
“Our goal is not to catch every

single eel,” says Mount, the coordi- nator of the Hudson River Eel Project, which is run by the New York State Department of Envi- ronmental Conservation. “It’s to count populations over time.” Counting eels has helped scientists learn that American eel populations are increasing. The Hud- son River nets caught an average of 17 eels a day in 2008. In 2020, they caught an average of 504. This is great news for these mys- terious nocturnal animals, which are listed as endangered by the International Union for the Con- servation of Nature, partly be-

cause of habitat loss and the building of dams. “We still have a long way to go before we reach historic levels,” Mount says. But thanks to habitat restoration and other work, “we’re moving in a positive direction.” There are 19 freshwater eel species, and they all start their lives in the Sargasso Sea. This is part of the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of North America and the Bermuda islands. A female eel spawns in lush sargassum, a type of seaweed. Her millions of larvae are pulled out to sea by strong ocean cur- rents and head west (American

Researchers cast a wide net

to help save endangered eels

LELA NARGI

TWO PHOTOS BY NEW YORK STATE DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONSERVATION

Researchers and volunteers, left, reset the fyke net used to catch young American eels in New York’s Hudson River. The endangered eels, which as adults are four feet long, are then counted and released. The number of eels counted has been growing recently.

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The Washington Post - USA (2022-05-24)

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