A robust assessment of the American eel ( Anguilla rostrata ) stock, required to guide conservation efforts, is challenged by the species’ vast range, high variability in demographic parameters and data inadequacies. Novel ideas and underutilised resources that may assist both analytic assessments and spatially oriented modelling include (1) species and environmental databases; (2) mining of data from scattered sources; (3) in...

The downstream migrations of mature longfinned eels ( Anguilla dieffenbachii Gray, 1842) and shortfinned eels ( Anguilla australis Richardson, 1848) were investigated at Aniwhenua Dam on the Rangitaiki River between 1992 and 1998. Migrants were mostly females over 1000 mm total length (TL) with otoliths indicating rapid growth rates. Migrations, which occurred on a few nights each autumn, generally began once water temperature...