Slippery problem neatly solved

Dead eels lie in the mud of the drained Homebush sewage ponds near Masterton.

SOMETIMES you need to drain a pond to uncover the reality.

The figure of 85,000 eels has often been bandied around as a potential figure for the number of eels lurking in the original Homebush sewage ponds near Masterton, which are now near to completely drained.

Various animal welfare and iwi sensitivities around the well-being of these eels prompted Masterton District Council earlier this year to vote for several engineering options to give the eels an assist in getting to the newly constructed ponds.

That included coarse weed matting or "ladders".

I'm mildly sceptical about the notion of eels climbing out of ponds, but apparently they're quite good at it. I was fairly sceptical about 85,000 eels, but once a figure gets chucked out there, it takes on a validity through sheer repetition. There's also a bit of human superstition about what lies beneath, especially if the waters are murky. Loch Ness, with its peaty dark waters, has made a success story out of it.

Perhaps we'll never know. Masterton District Council has organised the physical transfer of several thousand eels, using nets and, hopefully, others will work their way out under their own steam.

While I have to accept there would be casualties, it is certainly noticeable that a lot of eels clearly did not figure out how to get out and, as the ponds drained, they faced a fairly hefty gradient of broken concrete and stone to get to a new home.

It is also hard to observe what might be about 100 remaining eels in the last shallows, breaking the surface as they try to figure out what to do.

Nonetheless, I'm impressed the council has been actually trapping and transferring. Previous stories initially detailed council baulking at the idea, favouring the "ladders" and a through-pipe, but now it seems the old-fashioned methods are the best.

I wouldn't like to be the guy who sorts out the last of the eels in the shallows, because I would have thought it would be a bit dangerous in that sludge.

But if it's possible for eels to look bewildered, those last ones do. I hope council can sort them out.