April 18, 2013
Habitat loss main threat to eels
A fishing expert says a call by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment for a moratorium on commercial harvest of longfin eel, vindicates those who have been calling for a ban.
Mike Joy, the Director of Massey University’s Centre for Freshwater Ecosystem Management & Modelling, says the Manaaki Tuna group has been highlighting the threat to the eels from loss of habitat.
“We’ve got lots of dams all around the country which restrict them getting up stream to the habitat, and it also means that they can’t get down stream, when it’s time to go and breed. The pollution and the general destruction of what we’ve done to the waterways throughout the country is what has caused the decline. It would have been fine for commercial fishing if we hadn’t destroyed the habitat, but the way it’s going at the moment means the species are declining anyway, so it’s just a nail in the coffin having commercial fishing on top of that,” he says.
Dr Joy says most of the commercial catch goes to countries in Europe, Japan and the United States where eels have been fished to extinction.
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