Eels For Mangaia

Captain Andy Thomson Becomes a Good Sea Fairy

rE Cook Islands are fortunate in possessing an outsize in good fairies in the form of Captain “Andy”

Thomson, of the schooner “Tiare Tap oro”, who drifts eternally from isle to isle, casting golden-toothed sunshine wherever he makes a landfall.

Captain Thomson takes a keen inter est in the welfare of the Islanders, par ticularly in matters of health and food distribution, and natives and whites alike have benefited by his thoughtful Outstanding of his good deeds was the stocking of the Cook Islands with mos quito-fish. brought from Tahiti. All streams and taro swamps now abound with these useful little creatures, which destroy the mosquito larvae.

Mangaia, southernmost of the Cooks, is a “hard” island for food-fish; and in an endeavour to add to the diet of the Mangaians, Captain Thomson recently

brought a quantity of the celebrated eels, known as “itiki”, which are plentiful in the swampy interior of Mitiaro Island (Southern Cook Group).

Near Tamarua village, on Mangaia, is a fairlv large sheet of water, and fring ing swamps, called Tiriara.

Where the water meets the foot of the sheer cliff of the “makatea”, a cavern, famed in Mangaian history and legend, carries the overflow under the mass of raised coral, half a mile, to the ocean.

Captain Thomson considered that this little lake would be an ideal breeding place for “itiki”.

Accompanied by Fred Story, the popu lar engineer of the “Tiare Taporo”, and several local residents, and with two boys carrying a biscuit-tin containing thirty pioneer “itiki”, the captain made the four-miles hike to the lake, where, after appropriate prayers and speech by a member of the ruling family of the district, he released the eels, which

leisurely surveyed their new home waters, with evident approval.

At Captain Thomson’s suggestion a two years’ “raui” (prohibition) was placed on the lake, to give the eels ample time to multiply. These eels, which Captain Thomson has already successfully introduced to Rarotonga swamps, are rapid breeders, easy to catch, and are delicious eating, with the special virtue of being free from the curse of countless fine bones.

The jovial sailorman will accept no praise for his benevolent efforts. Try it, and he will say, “Well, the fact is, I’ve been such a good-for-nothing wretch I kinda feel that an attempt to do some thing useful now and then may help to atone for a worthless life!”

But we who know him are well aware that beneath Captain Andy’s broad and hairy chest beats a heart of gold—W.S.B.

Captain Andy Thomson releasing “itiki” eels from Mitiaro in Lake Tiriara, Mangaia, Cook Islands.