Call to Save the Diminishing Longfin

New Zealand longfin eels are the National Geographic’s “Freshwater Species of the Week.” The threatened creatures are New Zealand’s only endemic freshwater eel and are on a “slow path to extinction,” according to an April report by the parliamentary commissioner for the environment. National Geographic environment writer and editor Brian Howard says: “The eels reproduce only once in their long lives, which is part of why their numbers have been in decline. Forest and Bird has called for protection of the longfin eel, urging that the country avoid losing another unique species.”