Well eeled

I've been out this evening at the Friends of Five Rivers AGM. There was an interesting speaker from the Nature Conservancy, talking about the Hudson. I hadn't realised before that much of the mighty Hudson River is actually an estuary - it is tidal for 150 miles, from the Atlantic all the way to a dam at Troy, just beyond Albany.

Also, great lengths of the river look nothing like they used to, having been extensively altered by man over the centuries to accomodate shipping. Though there are efforts afoot to try to re-naturalise the Hudson, if it completely reverted to its original state it would soon be difficult to navigate again - so there's a tension (as there nearly always is) between doing right by nature, and giving up a human benefit.

We also learnt about the mysterious 200 foot deep sink holes that exist in some parts of the river, and (another mystery) the migratory habits of eels. They live in the Hudson for thirty years, then head off to the Sargasso Sea - and though no-one has ever seen them do it, presumably they spawn there for thousands of semi-translucent baby eels come swimming back.