Water Wheel Nov/Dec 2021: Freshwater Conservation

Abstract

Race on to save SA’s unique eel species before they slip into extinction “There is a lot we still don’t know about Africa’s eels,” says Dr Céline Hanzen from the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Functional Diversity in the School of Life Sciences. “What we do know is that there are indications that they are on a slippery slope in their survival race.” Hanzen is the lead author of a paper titled ‘Spatial ecology of freshwater eels in South Africa: implications for conservation’ , publisher earlier this year in the journal Hydrobiologia. The paper contains the findings of the researchers’ preliminary investigation of the spatial ecology of three eel species in the Thukela River. This is the first study to have measured the home range and quantified habitat use of freshwater eels in African freshwater habitats. The researchers focused their efforts on the Thukela catchment. This catchment is the largest in KwaZulu-Natal (30 000 km2). It flows from the Drakensberg Mountains for about 500 km before ending in the Tugela Mouth in the Indian Ocean.

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