Southland's duck ponds teeming with eels

Monday, 24 August 2020

Southland Fish & Game research found some duck ponds supported over 100 eels. (file photo)

If you’re a bit squeamish, you might want to reconsider who retrieves the birds off your pond during the next duck hunting season.

Research from Southland Fish and Game has shown that the province’s hunter-created wetlands are teeming with eels.

Last summer, it conducted eel surveys in 46 waterfowl hunting ponds located throughout the region.

Some ponds supported over 100 eels and on average each duck pond supported 16 shortfin eel weighing 10 kilograms and 10 longfin eel weighing over nine kilograms.

A bucket of eels after an overnight set in a Tokanui wetland.

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Fish & Game Officer Erin Garrick counts eels after an overnight set in a Tokanui wetland

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It’s estimated that there are around 7600 duck ponds in Southland, and when you extrapolate the numbers, Southland duck ponds support upwards of 120,000 shortfin eel and 80,000 longfin eel collectively weighing over 150,000kg, field officer Cohen Stewart said.

'As we lifted our nets in some ponds, they were literally teeming with eels'

'The results of our work clearly highlight that hunters really are conservationists, not just of waterfowl, but our native fish as well.'

'If it were not for these hunter-created wetlands, there would be far less habitat available for our native eels'.

The aim of the study was to estimate the number and biomass of eels supported by Southland duck ponds and highlight the value of hunter-created duck ponds as habitat for the native shortfin eel and endangered and endemic longfin eel.

In Southland, duck hunting is an important part of the local culture and hunters, many of whom were farmers, put a huge amount of effort into creating waterfowl hunting habitat and in the process, habitat for many native birds and fish that share that habitat, Stewart said.

Game bird hunters pay $4 of their hunting licence specifically to the Game Bird Habitat Trust which undertakes wetland restoration projects across the country.