NEW YORK – Andrew Orkin took a break from his night trot to sit at Prospect Park Lake when he turned around and was surprised to see a tangle of squid snakes writhing.
“And a pretty big group, completely alive,” said Orkin, a music composer who lives near Brooklyn Park.
It turned out to be eels that had escaped from one of two giant plastic bags that opened when a guy dragged them to shore. After throwing the eels into the lake, the guy walked away and explained to passers-by, “Just to save lives. “
Illegal release late last month has become an interest in social media, however, the dumping of exotic animals into urban parks is not new. In villages across the country, non-native birds, turtles, fish and lizards have settled in the locals. ecosystems and upset them.
New Yorkers release thousands of non-native animals a year, many of which have abandoned rapidly dying animals. But others can survive, reproduce, and end up causing lasting damage.
“People love animals and think they’re doing something smart by letting them go,” said Jason Munshi-South, an urban environmentalist at Fordham University. “Most will die. Some will become a problem, and then there will be no turning back. “
State and New York City officials say it’s too early to know how Prospect Park eels may simply be local species, but authorities knew them as eels from local Southeast Asian swamps, discovered in photographs taken through passers-by, such as those discovered in at least 8 states.
Once brought, after being bought at local live fish markets, officials say, eels eat almost everything by adding plants, insects, crustaceans, frogs, turtles and other fish, and can simply attack or compete with local species in the park for as long as they last. of her survival, said Katrina Toal, deputy director of the wildlife branch of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation.
There are no plans to eliminate eels, as they are nocturnal and spend most of their time buried in the sediments of lakes, rivers and marshes, so it may be impossible to detect them from the lake.
“This type of species is a bit complicated. They’re well hidden,” Toal said. “We’re passing by to pass out and check to catch any of them. “
Without witnessing the release, officials at the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, who are investigating the incident, may simply not say how many eels were released last month. Viewers reported seeing more than a hundred of them.
DEC officials say they will be for swamp eels in the agency’s upcoming spring survey, but they don’t expect them to pass through the winter.
However, the University of Toronto’s freshwater environmentalist Nicholas Mandrak said, “even if they don’t survive, they can have short-term negative effects. “
If some prospect park grafts for a few years, weather replacement can warm the city’s waters enough to make them hospitable to swamp eels, Mandrak said.
“We shouldn’t come to a quick conclusion that because they’re in Asia, they couldn’t do it in New York,” he said.
In the past, exotic species gave the impression on Lakes Hemlock and Canadice in western New York State in 2019 and Meadow Lake in Queens in 2017. Michigan, New Jersey and New Jersey Pennsylvania.
New York has plenty of time to introduce exotic species into its parks.
In 1890, Shakespeare enthusiasts released a herd of about 60 European starlings in Central Park, which have become an existing population of millions of other people across the country who outperformed local birds in numbers, destroyed crops and roared jet engines.
For decades, pup red-eared turtles have been stranded in city ponds, creating a major nuisance that has driven out painted turtles and fueled green algae blooms.
Voracious snakeheads and sharp-toothed fish, brought to puppy shops, food markets and aquarium enthusiasts across the United States, have been seen at Harlem Meer and Flushing Meadows Corona Park in New York City.
And the descendants of parakeet priests escaped or released and Italian lizards are scattered through the city’s districts.
Eels are just the last episode. ” It’s a rare, catchy story,” Toal said, “but what happens a lot more is that other people release an unwanted animal. “
Follow Marion Renault on Twitter: @MarionRenault.