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EELS AS FOOD

LAKE ELLESMERE SUPPLIES

REPORT BY FISHERIES INSPECTOR

“Only small bucketsfull out of the well of total supply available,” is a phrase used by Mr A. E. Hefford, Chief Inspector of Fisheries, in that part of his annual report dealing with the consumption and export of fresh-water eels. Recent developments, he reports, suggested the beginnings of an internal market for the sale of eels, while exports.of frozen eels of a value of £356 were made in 1944 almost entirely to Australia.

From his investigations ol the eel population of Lake Ellesmere in March, April, and May of 1942, the season when mature eels muster for their migration to the ocean; Mr D. F. Hobbs (fresh-water biologist) estimated, the report says, that the quantity of eels assembled at the Taumutu end of the lake was not less than 500 tons. “A similar aggregation, probably not so large, occurs in Lake Oonoke (Lake Wairarapa) but it is generally considered that the numerous lakes in the Waikato system carry a total eel population that exceeds by far the available stock in any other district,” says Mr Hefford. Various efforts in the past to commercialise eels were abandoned after trial the report says: “It would appear that none of these enterprises was sufficiently profitable to encourage continuance. The reasons are not hard to find.”

One was that the tentative exports were not accustomed to handling fish supplies. Those in the fish trade were making bigger and easier profits out of well-known and popular kinds of seafish. There was also an absence of professional eel-fishermen. The collection and transport to a suitable depot were also neither simple nor inexpensive.

Mr Hefford suggests that if New Zealand’s fresh-water eel resources were seriously organised a useful contribution might be made to UNRRA in the provision of a foodstuff that might be substantial in bulk and first-class in quantity,

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Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19451205.2.103

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24741, 5 December 1945, Page 10

Word Count
313

EELS AS FOOD Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24741, 5 December 1945, Page 10

EELS AS FOOD Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24741, 5 December 1945, Page 10