Many of New Zealand’s rivers are built up with hydropower dams, and Jellyman says that it’s common for young eels to find themselves trapped below these structures, much like salmon.
Dr Egan and her team will be studying the ear bones of glass eels to learn more about their spawning locations and larval oceanic movements. In this new project, migrating female eels will be tagged and their location communicated to satellites to help pinpoint their spawning grounds in the western Pacific Ocean.
The oceans have absorbed most of this temperature increase, and so many marine species, including commercially fished scallops, are under particular stress to migrate northwards to cooler waters.