Freshwater fish

Contraptions that resemble upside-down kitchen sinks have been placed in the Waikawa River in Southland to attract a notoriously elusive native fish species.

Under the light of the moon where the river meets the sea, NIWA researchers are planning to catch tiny fish that are all but invisible to the naked eye.

NIWA freshwater scientists are pinning their hopes of solving an age-old mystery on 10 female longfin eels who are about to begin an epic journey to their spawning grounds somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.

The tiny inanga have been plucked from Waikato streams and held in a darkened laboratory for the last month, undertaking highly advanced testing to find the strongest, fittest and fastest fish.

In a secret training location on the outskirts of Hamilton, a squad of whitebait is being put through its paces by fish scientists.

As a young child growing up on an Irish farm, one of Eimear Egan’s chores was to regularly clean out the well from where her family drew its drinking water. In the well lived a large eel that, no matter how many times it was shifted, just kept coming back.

The Fish Passage Assessment Tool has been developed to provide an easy to use, practical tool for recording instream structures and assessing their likely impact on fish movements and river connectivity.

A list all of New Zealand's freshwater fish species.

We have prepared a breakdown of the different guidelines that are available for sampling freshwater fisheries. The overview provides links to key documents that explain what should be considered when designing fish monitoring studies and how to implement the various sampling techniques.

The New Zealand Fish Passage Guidelines sets out recommended practice for the design of instream infrastructure to provide for fish passage.

Learn how to use the New Zealand Freshwater Fish Database (NZFFD)

Banded kōkopu juveniles are very good climbers and will try to escape from buckets by clinging to and wriggling up the sides.