Urban Lives: Longfin Eels and Long-Tailed Bats

About

This piece focuses on tuna longfin eels and pekapeka long-tailed bats, who share our urban environments, including Hamilton City, although we may be unaware of them. The music depicts the noise and relentless pace of our own lives before heading into the water where we encounter tuna before emerging at dusk to discover long-tailed bats. The piece finishes by jolting us back into our own relentlessly noisy urban environment. Habitat loss, commercial fishing, and pollution have impacted on eel numbers and size. Critically endangered pekapeka were the surprise winners of Bird of the Year 2021. These heroic little creatures are threatened by habitat loss, predation, and introduced mammals and wasps. Forest & Bird’s Te Hoiere Bat Recovery Project, in Marlborough, is working to protect them.