Quite Eely One Morning

Last weekend I was strolling in the park with a friend.  We were basking in the afternoon chill and dodging low flying dogs when the conversation turned, as it is wont to do in such circumstances, to eels.  I wasn't aware of this but apparently there are eels everywhere, I'm expecting them to come slithering out of my taps.  There are eels in Centennial Park which I can find reasonably believeable as it used to be a swamp.  We've drained it but the ponds are still sufficiently swampesque to support an eel population.  The eels were also helped by the fact that we introduced European carp into the ponds.  Our colonial forebears had a bit of an obsession with European carp, they'd introduce them to a damp sponge if you left it unattended for five minutes but what it did in this case was provide the eels with a ready made food supply to replace the one that took a battering when we drained the swamp.  There are also eels in the botanical gardens and in Victoria Park which is a patch of ground near the CBD with a pond that has a fountain in it.  My ignorance was so great that I thought they must have been dumped there by people who had kept eels as pets.

Did you know eels are fish?  I didn't.  Having said that I'm not sure what I thought eels were.  If I thought they were anything I probably thought they were eels.  Apparently eels are multitaskers and can pull off the dual role of fish and eel without a blink.  Naturally there are eels in the Parramatta River.  Parramatta is an Aboriginal word meaning either "Wow! Look at all the eels!" or possibly "Humiliating football defeat".  There are a couple of species of moray in the harbour as well.  Frankly we appear to be hip deep in eels.

It is commonly thought that the eels in Centennial Park spend their entire lives there but this is actually not true.  The two most important parts of their life, birth and death, take place several thousand kilometres away off the coast of New Caledonia.  The reason for this is quite simple.  In keeping with its determination to make reproduction as insanely complicated as possible mother nature dictates that eels which live in ponds in Centennial Park have to mate and reproduce near New Caledonia.  Once in their lifetime the eels get the urge and leave their tranquil homes in the Sydney parklands for a long sea journey.  This was simple enough once upon a time; the swamps connected up with streams which connected up with other swamps closer to the coast which in turn connected with the sea.  Now they don't.  In the last two centuries we have built a racecourse, several suburbs and at least three golfcourses between the eel's Centennial Park home and the sea.

A lot of species would have used this as a convenient excuse to become extinct.  The giant panda for instance, lazy bastard that it is, would simply have rolled onto its belly and whined for government handouts.  Eels however are made of sterner stuff.  Slimy sterner stuff to be sure but sterner nonetheless.  Come the autumn rains the eels are off.  Swimming through the ponds, wriggling down drains and stormwater channels, underneath the racetrack and across roads and the aforementioned golf courses (no doubt making use of the water hazards where convenient).  It is true that fish can't survive out of water but the eels seem to take that as more of a statement of general principles than a strict rule.  Once through the golf courses and the suburbs they splosh into what's left of the coastal swamps and wind up near the airport.

No, they don't fly to New Caledonia although if any species could my money is on them.  The airport sticks out into Botany Bay which is the eels entry point to the ocean.  Once there they adjust their biology to handle saltwater and settle in for a relaxing three thousand kilometre swim to New Caledonia.  On arrival they breed and then die.  I don't blame them; I've been to New Caledonia, if I'd just swum three thousand kilometres and discovered that my destination was New Caledonia I'd probably give up the ghost as well.

But a new generation has been spawned and soon the waters are alive with baby eels.  Naturally scientists call them something else at this point just to prove they know more than anybody else.  Such baby eels (I refuse to pander to the scientific community) as survive all of the things that happen to feed on baby eels swim or drift south until eventually they wind up opposite Botany Bay at which point they do the entire journey in reverse finally flopping into the Centennial Park ponds where they will spend the rest of their lives until they start feeling horny.

I can't explain how impressed I am with eels right now.  Although it has to be admitted the ones in Centennial Park drew the short straw.  The eels in the Botanical Gardens just have to cross about a dozen metres of frequently damp grass to get into Sydney Harbour.  The eels in the Nepean River have it even tougher.  You might think that simply swimming down a river to the open sea was within the competence of most fish and you would be right if it wasn't for the fact that some inconsiderate bastard has built a hundred metre high dam in the way.  Eel experts refute stories of eels wriggling up the retaining wall of Warragamba Dam not because they can't do it but because it makes them a sitting target for birds.  Instead the eels swim up a small creek that flows into the river below the dam, make their way across a road and a roundabout, down a gully and finally reenter the river system above the dam.  I hope eel sex is great because frankly extinction is sounding like the sensible option by comparison.

I have never seen an eel in what for want of a better term I will call the wild.  Its hardly that since their entire environment has been bludgeoned to the point virtual non existence but it has to be said that the eels appear to be taking it in their stride.  I think a lot of other animals could learn from their example.  Humans for one.

Incidentally it may appear from my comments in this and previous blogs that I have a bit of hostility towards the giant panda.  Not true.  I think they're gorgeous.  I think they're beautiful and I hope they are with us for many centuries to come.  But it has to be admitted that they're a damn disaster as a viable species.  If pandas showed one tenth of the gumption and determination exhibited by the Centennial Park eels then we wouldn't need breeding programmes.  The only question we would have to answer about pandas is whether we could shoot enough of them to give the human population of China a fighting chance.