A shortfin eel named Eel McPherson, who was beloved by a New Zealand city for 35 years, has bid bon voyage to its backyard pool and disappeared during a once-in-500-years flood. The eel was kept by a Whangārei man, George Campbell, for decades – first at a fish museum that he ran during the 1990s and later at his home – said Campbell’s granddaughter, Alyce Charlesworth. Charlesworth said she hoped the eel had managed to make it to the sea. “It would have just had to go down the driveway and across the road and at high tide, during a flood, it wouldn’t have really even needed to worry about the beach,” Charlesworth said. She added that the eel had lived in a “knee-high” pool in Campbell’s backyard just 50m from the beach and could have left earlier if it had wished (eels can slither across land as long as their skin remains moist). But perhaps the deluge in Whangārei, near the top of New Zealand’s North Island, – which council officials said was the worst in living memory – proved just too tempting an opportunity for Eel McPherson when its pool overflowed. Charlesworth rushed to the beach to ensure the fish was not lying injured somewhere but there was no sign of it. “I felt a bit gutted about it,” she said, adding that Campbell, her grandfather, had put on a brave face about the eel’s departure. “But once we’d had a chat about it, we realised the timing of it would be right for it naturally to spawn.” Shortfins about the age of Eel McPherson migrate from New Zealand to the Pacific Ocean – possibly off the coast of Tonga – where they breed and then die, exhausted by the energy required to make the journey. The fact that the eel’s journey was “very much final” was bittersweet for Charlesworth and Campbell. “It’s really interesting to know that the natural behaviour stayed with it right through and it still had its instincts,” she said. “We’re just hoping that it makes it.” Eel McPherson was named through a newspaper contest held in 1995. It was popular with children because it was so tame, and had helped change the view that eels were “gross”, Charlesworth said. She believed its friendliness had been part of what ended the practice of school eel hunts in the area. Campbell and the eel retired from the museum in 2001, but people passing his property often asked how the fish was faring. “As insignificant as it seems, one eel, like I could go out to a creek right now and get another,” Charlesworth said. “They don’t all have that characteristic where they’re so tame and their demeanour is so peaceful that they don’t mind people and can handle a bit of a pat.” Charlesworth and Campbell hope that the eel’s larvae will one day follow the current in reverse back to New Zealand – traditionally they return to about the same area its parent left. “It was a very special creature and excellent ambassador for its species,” Charlesworth said. “It wasn’t just any eel.”