TRANSCRIPT:
Hello this is Dr. Tom Mullikin with SCDNR for Into the Wild.
An American eel moving through a dark South Carolina creek may not look like a world traveler, but its life connects that small stream to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
American eels spend years growing in rivers, wetlands, and estuaries. When they mature, they leave fresh water and travel out to sea toward the Sargasso Sea to spawn. Their young then drift with ocean currents back toward the coast before entering rivers and beginning the cycle again.
It is one of the great migrations happening mostly out of sight. A fish beneath a cypress root may have crossed open ocean to reach that exact place. The next time you look into a blackwater stream, remember - even the quietest water can be connected to a journey thousands of miles long.