A lucky Aussie says he was in the “right place at the right time” to witness an incredible phenomenon taking place at a quiet beach in Victoria this week.
Warrnambool local and ex-mayor Michael Neoh captured the moment hundreds of short-finned eels started their annual 3,000km migration to their breeding grounds in the Coral Sea.
“It was amazing to be there in person,” Neoh told Yahoo News Australia. “It looked spectacular.”
“It was such a clear day, clear water, and I saw them trying to get across the riverbank. It was difficult because a few of them tried to get into the ocean, but the wave surge pushed them back.
He estimated there must’ve been “at least a thousand” eels waiting to cross from the Hopkins River mouth to the ocean, some over a metre long.
The eels, known as Kooyang to the Gunditjmara First Nations people, move from fresh water to the ocean at the end of their lives to breed.
Lachlan McKinnon, fisheries scientist and eel expert, previously told Yahoo News, “no one really knows what triggers eels to do it”, and even which eels decide to go.
“It’s likely a combination of their age and size, but there are seasonal triggers for them to migrate out to sea to go somewhere in the Coral Sea to spawn,” he said.
Some of the eels were caught on the sand in between waves while trying to get to the open ocean. Source: Michael Neoh
The migration is a one-way journey, with the eels dying from exhaustion once their journey and breeding is complete.
Eventually, their offspring make their way back to freshwater habitats in Victoria, NSW, Tasmania, New Zealand and the South Pacific to start the cycle again.
“The ones that get back to the Hopkins River in Warrnambool, some of them actually climb up a waterfall — the Hopkins Falls — to get back there,” Neoh said.
“I guess it must be some innate urge to go back to their place of their origin.”
He said he’d love to be present at the Hopkins River for the return of the juvenile eels, to see them climbing up the rocks.
Each year, thousands of short-finned eels make the one-way trip to breed. Source: Michael Neoh
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