Doco aims to hook viewers on longfin eel

Eastern Bay heroes going the "hard yards" to save the eel are being featured on a Maori Television documentary.

The documentary shows the extraordinary life-cycle of the longfin eel (tuna), its history among Maori tribes and the hard work of those helping the threatened species survive.

Saving Tuna premieres this Saturday at 8.30pm.

Featured on the programme is local man Bill Kerrison, who is continuing a 30-year-old catch-and-release programme to rebuild eel stocks in the Rangitaiki River from Murupara to Whakatane.

Ngati Awa tikanga expert Pouroto Ngaropo talks about the reverence tribes have for the eel as tipuna and mokai (ancestors and pets), while John Hohapata-Oke is establishing the National Eel Association.

The hour-long documentary also highlights a computer game about the life-cycle of the longfin, designed by Ian Ruru in Gisborne.

Co-producer Gary Scott, from the Wellington-based Gibson Group, says the eel is an "awesome fish. The first time you learn the story of the eel, you get hooked, which is what inspired us to start the production."

But their survival is now threatened, with the longfin population decreasing significantly after overfishing in the 1970s, pollution of waterways, draining of swamps and damming of rivers.

Saving Tuna looks closely at how the eel is being affected as well as how iwi - from Lake Ellesmere in Canterbury to the "tuna town" of Moerewa in Northland - are working to regenerate local stocks, Mr Scott says.

"There are some real heroes out there doing the hard yards to save the eel."