The Hudson River Eel Project: A community science framework for management and education

ABSTRACT Community science, or citizen science, engages trained volunteers with professional researchers to answer a range of environmental ­questions. When buttressed with strong protocols and robust training, community science can be particularly useful in studying migratory fish by expanding the spatial and temporal scale of research. The Hudson River Eel Project is a community science program in which volunteers collect data on juvenile American Eel Anguilla rostrata numbers as the fish enter estuarine tributaries from the ocean. The Eel Project has been designed to (1) assist fishery agency managers in collecting robust data on young-of-year glass eel ingress, and (2) engage diverse audiences in relevant field science that leads to greater ecological stewardship and education. In this article, we describe the initial findings of 14 years of eel monitoring at six sites along the Hudson River estuary, explore how community science efforts can be applied to the needs of fishery agencies, and demonstrate the impact of community science in career development through short testimonials.