Okay, so maybe ōrea (longfin eels, Anguilla dieffenbachii) aren’t kitten-cute, but show me a cat that can swim 2,000 kilometres! In Ride North that’s how far Nui goes from Aotearoa New Zealand to breed in Tonga at the end of her life, and it’s about seven times Folly and Tooth’s journey. Plus elvers (young longfins) are incredible climbers. They're born in the ocean but they live their lives in fresh water and to get inland from the sea they can go up near-vertical walls of up to 43 metres (= two tennis courts). Ben could probably explain how on his website, but don't ask me! When they find a good spot to call home they can live for over a hundred years.
Kelly Davis lives in Aotearoa and he loves ōrea. A while back he and some Māori cousins started trying to help eels trapped by hydroelectric dams get to the sea. Each big female that makes it can spawn about 30 million eggs, so it’s worth the effort.
"I don’t know if you’ve ever seen ’em try to migrate. It’s an amazing sight. [...] They go way up the river and then they come swim furiously down the river, and they just roll, like a big ball, rolling over." *
Swim, climb, roll…is there anything eels can’t do? Māori tell some very old stories about them and have always held them in great awe – because they’re awesome!
* From: https://orionmagazine.org/article/survivors/
