TOP TEN REASONS IT IS WRONG AND STUPID TO KILL AMERICAN EELS IN DAMS
1. It is monstrously cruel. Many eels injured at dams take three or more weeks to finally die. While the back portions of their sliced up bodies rot off the eels still remain alert and breathing but are unable to swim.
2. American eels killed at dams are pregnant mothers. They are swimming to the ocean to give birth to their babies.
3. American eels killed at dams are 10 to 40 years old or more. Female eels are among the longest lived animals in North America, second only to turtles and humans.
4. American eels are going extinct. The United States is now considering protection of American eels under the United States Endangered Act.
5. The killing of female American eels at dams is 100 percent preventable using proven and cost-effective technology: the screening of turbine intakes to prevent eels from coming into contact with the turbine blades which kill them.
6. The massive killing of female American eels at hydro-electric dams is illegal. It is in violation of the federal Clean Water Act and numerous other statutes. It is illegal to break the law. People who break the law should be prosecuted, not tolerated.
7. Hydroelectric dam owners and state and federal natural resource agencies have been well aware of the massive killing of American eels at dams for more than 30 years. In 2005, there is no credible reason for them to sit on their hands and not stop this killing immediately.
8. If American eels were being killed in massive numbers by toxic chemical spills, the killing would have been stopped decades ago and the polluters would have long ago been hauled into court.
9. Slaughtering female American eels at dams sends a terrible message to our children and conflicts with everything they are taught in school about revering the natural world around them.
10. They are cute. Just look at the picture.