Native Fish Lesson

Anna Crowe visited us today to teach us more about some of the Native Fish that live in our rivers- some of which we might even see in Pine Valley Stream if we are really lucky. We learnt that whitebait are actually 5 different species of fish and about how to tell the difference between Longfin and Shortfin Eels. Then the children recreated the lifecycle of the Longfin Eel, which was a lot of very energetic and noisy fun!

The Longfin Eels are preparing for their huge 5 month journey from a New Zealand river to the Tongan Trench to lay their eggs.

The Eels lay their eggs and then die

The baby eels return journey to New Zealand takes 18 months! They will live in the lakes and rivers until they decide to make the journey to reproduce themselves. This may be when they are 100 years old!

After Anna's visit the children chose something about the lesson that they found most interesting and produced a page about it for their Camp Books.