djsurfs Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 We had a visitor last week, so took the opportunity to go for a nighttime bushwalk. We like going down the creek to surprise people with a glo-worm grotto when we all shut our lights off. On our way down this time, we got a surprise and found a little eel in the pool! :bounce: We were telling another friend, and they were like "NO! How could an eel get all the way up there?!" We are at about 300M elevation, and there are some big waterfalls to get up... Well, I didn't know how to answer that! Anyone? and do they eat mainly fish, or koura too? Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HaNs Posted March 24, 2009 Report Share Posted March 24, 2009 They move over land also Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 elvers can climb quite impressive and sheer waterfalls. They get out of the water and inch their way up the wet sides (ie not in the flow), clinging on with surface tension. Note also that a two foot eel is about twenty years old, and they grow incredibly slowly. Also they grow much much slower in low-quality streams. Eels breed once, at the end of their lives (which can be 60-100 years, for a female, males are much younger). They migrate down the streams to the sea, then hundreds of kilometers out to the Pacific (we are not sure where), where they spawn and die. The tiny eels (which are shaped like willow-leaves) make it back to NZ ONLY in the case of the longfin eel, or to NZ, western Australia and surrounding islands in the case of the shortfin eel. Commercial eel fishing is a serious threat to our eel species and they are now on the threatened list, despite govt claims that it is sustainable. It is a 'quota managed' fishery, but given that the fishermen have (almost) never been able to fill the quota and usually the annual catch is well below it, you can't say the quota is doing anything to preserve the fishery. Some surveys of eel population in single rivers have counted circa 450 eels. Sounds like heaps eh? However of those, only circa 5 are female..... hardly a workable population. The reason for this is that females live in the streams for so much longer, and thus have to avoid the fishermen for longer (and eels are really easy to catch) also the females grow bigger and are therefore much more desirable to catch. We are now seeing hardly any elvers entering the streams. The fishermen say they are still catching heaps (albeit much less than before). Of course they are, today's adult eels migrated upstream decades ago. If no eels reproduce from now onwards, they will still be able to catch plenty of eels for decades to come, but there won't be any replacement. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chilli Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 WOW im fully going to respect eels a whole lot more i take my daughter down to feed the local tame eels whitch are getting used to us,(now i have some info to teach her and the other children i see there) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ianab Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 Eels will certainly climb, and the smaller ones seem to just keep going untill they run out of water. Where I grew up was in on the border of Egmont Nat. Park, also about 300m. The small streams there were full of young eels, 15-30cm long. Very shy, you would only find them by flipping over rocks and poking under logs. Water falls are no obstacle to them, give them a nice wet night and they just go overland. We found them above a 10m waterfall at my old farm. Maybe they did overland, but that would be 500m down the road. I live in Stratford, also 300m asl. We have 3 semi-tame eels in the back yard, around 1m long, in a stream that you could jump across with a good run-up. Try feeding your one at dusk. They can get very tame over time and will hand feed once they get used to you. Some raw chicken or beef offcuts will get their attention. Eels are very long lived and you may have the same ones coming to feed for 20-30 years. Ian Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djsurfs Posted March 25, 2009 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 Thanks for the all the info! wow! neato tho sad they are being mismanaged and overfished. And now very sad to know how old the GIANT one nearby was.(cuppla years ago) Neighbours went for a waterfall walk & brought back a trophy & let the dog have it. But cool 8) , I don't need to buy another tank for natives to have another pet! I can just go down to the creek & try feeding Mr. Eel :bounce: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southerrrngirrl Posted March 25, 2009 Report Share Posted March 25, 2009 I've always been fascinated by eels but I too even have more respect for them now. When we went to Willowbank last November, we saw some huge eels there.. I was completely amazed. I'm thinking they got fat from all the fruit and stuff that the keas were taking out of their feeding boxes and dropping it in to the water. Very funny to watch that :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghaz Posted April 20, 2009 Report Share Posted April 20, 2009 in the stream in my back yard we had alot of eels, i would feed them at least 3 times a week, eggs mainly rotten, and old meat that i sometimes leave outside. before Christmas we would get anywhere between 10-30 eels a time ranging from 5cm's ish to well over a metre. went to feed them in late feb/early march(end of school holidays) and 1 to 3 eels came out no bigger than 30cm's the Kids in the Holiday home next door have been killing and leaving dead eels in the stream... rather pi@$d me off. i liked to hand feed the eels. haven't seem any Koura in there for a while, and see a couple of fish once in a while. the once tranquil stream is now a dead creek thanks to the out of towners. thats the end of my sad story Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stella Posted April 21, 2009 Report Share Posted April 21, 2009 bastards!!! :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: :evil: Sadly your story is very common The one over a metre long would have been very old. Do you have a way of contacting them and letting them know the reality? Without people standing up for these amazing creatures they WILL go extinct. We are just watching it happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ghaz Posted April 21, 2009 Report Share Posted April 21, 2009 we're putting up a fence around our property, as they have to go though our back yard to get to the stream. we were being kind neighbours and giving them access down there, but seeing as they leave a mess and don't clean up after them selves have decided to take away their rights. the other people that back onto the stream are mainly older folk and don't really go out to kill everything. we also have the council come through and doing their waterway "cleanup" they did this just before spring, which i think they sprayed the stream to get rid of the oxygen weed, and other water plants, do you think this would have contributed? not sure what they sprayed with. its so amazing watching the eels fight over food, and watching them while they eat, i love the barrel roll they do. the ones that are left you can see where someones stabbed them with a spear or something the like, but they seem to be healing ok. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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