I am smaller than my cousin the
longfin eel, but I travel further because I can live in Australia, Tasmania, New Caledonia, Lord Howe Island and Norfolk Island as well as in Aoteoroa. I eat different food from my cousin, mostly stream insects and also snails and shrimps.
When I grow larger, I can eat fish. I am lucky because I am a good climber so I can often get up the walls of dams and other human-made things that block the path of bullies, kokopu and other fish.
I live in the same places as my cousin, upstream among the logs and along the stream bank. When I turn 35, I migrate downstream and then out into the Pacific Ocean where I lay between one and three million eggs! When my young are one-and-a-half years old, they will swim back to the mainland and up a river, changing to a brown colour. I like to live in Waitakere and I hope that you will try to improve your streams so I have more places to choose to live in.
I am smaller than my cousin the
