Most families I knew went to the beach during their summer holidays. As an 8, 9 and 10 year old I spent my Christmas holidays beside Mangaone Stream in Te Horo in the Horowhenua. I have significant memories of those days – eels/tuna hanging in a shed, holding tuna, damming the stream (I thought it was a river), and swimming in a grey bathtub. After we helped dam the stream, our father found an old bathtub. He half filled the tub which allowed us to cool down on a hot summer’s day and separate the rest of the swimming hole which was littered with huge tuna. One day the tub drifted into the middle of the stream. More water came in and it started to sink. As the tub sank the tuna came in over the top. My sister and I panicked, screamed, splashed, and scrambled frantically to get to the bank. I was too scared to stand up in case, my feet got bitten. We reached the bank alive and safe! It took 50 years for me to look at tuna again. Tuna pronounced toona, is not to be confused with the fish tuna. Tuna refers to both long fin and short fin eels. Kūwharuwharu tuna refers to longfin eel. The Kūwharuwharu tuna is the top predator in our rivers.
My siblings. I am the second on the left.
They are indicators of a healthy river. They clean up any edible debris, eat rats, fish, other eels, invertebrates, koura, baby ducklings, whitebait and anything else they can find. Mangaone Stream 50 years ago must have been super healthy. Tuna over a metre long are a longfin female. The female accumulates eggs and can sometimes wait 100 years to migrate. She can carry up to 20 million eggs and grow up to over 2 metres long. This is Willie (she is female) she was at Awaawaroa for maybe 100 years. She waited and we hope when she disappeared two years ago she migrated. Rob Morton had befriended her for the last twenty years. He fed her, picked her up out of the water and stroked her, which she seemed to love. I loved watching Rob with her.
This is Willie. She was 1.3 meters long and the width of a young seal.
Longfin eels are endemic (native and found in nearly all Aotearoa’s rivers and streams). Their status is endangered. Most longfin eels make two journeys in their lifetime. As young larvae, the eels float on the ocean currents back to New Zealand. At this stage they do not look like eels. By the time they arrive in New Zealand they are called glass eels; the glass eels are small and see-through. Once in New Zealand’s waterways, the eels are known as elvers. The elvers settle down and grow larger and darker, becoming adults. After maturing in freshwater rivers and streams, they migrate (after 23 years or later) in autumn downstream to the sea. The eels swim to deep trenches in the Pacific Ocean. This journey takes many months. They spawn (fertilise and lay eggs) in the trenches and then die.
Awaawaroa is a sanctuary for eels because it has been left as a natural wetland. Tuna find their way here. Rob and the eco village have planted harakeke and many other trees on either side of the stream that keep tuna shaded and stabilise the streams banks. Love big Mumma tuna and let them be.
Awaawaroa Valley, Waiheke
Promise - Find a harakeke bush. Sit with it and photograph/draw it. Describe and/or write a poem about what you think its connection to tuna is. Send to info@storiesinaction.co.nz.
