Video captures eel in escape from restaurant in Adelaide CBD

It was probably destined for someone’s cooking pot but this slippery specimen, found in a gutter near Gouger St, was not going down without a fight.

An eel has been found writhing in a gutter after seemingly making an escape from a Gouger St restaurant.

A video shared with The Advertiser by Bory Thon shows the eel squirming in a gutter on Mill St, near Chinatown, on Monday morning. It is not known exactly where the eel came from.

This slippery little eel appears to have escaped from a Gouger Street restaurant and was spotted by Bory Thon making his escape in nearby Mill St.

Eels are served in restaurants, where they are sometimes kept in live tanks. Smoked eel is also a popular delicacy in some cuisines.

Nic Bishop, Adelaide Zoo’s animal behaviour and creative program manager, said the long-finned eel was one of the species that is eaten.

“They are an amazing animal because they have one of the most bizarre life cycles,” he told ABC Radio Adelaide on Wednesday.

“They’re called catadromous, which means they live their lives in fresh water but at the end of their lives travel into the sea to go and breed near New Caledonia and Tonga.”

Mr Bishop said there are several populations in the sea between Australia and New Zealand that gradually change into eels as they hit the shore of the continent, and then into elvers that travel upstream and mature in fresh creeks and dams. These eels can live up to 20 years and grow up to 80 kilograms.

“This character sliding down on the street, I noticed from the vision that there was a bit of water and I think the thing about the eel is that it can breathe, they can travel over land,” he said.

“If there’s an overflow of water, eels can travel breathing oxygen from their surroundings ... they are fantastically tough.”

Mr Bishop said the creatures were also “good escape artists”.

“They’re always looking for opportunity, and if they’re feeling overcrowded or they find a way to move out, they can stretch up, use their muscular bodies and their snake-like form to get through a tiny space,” he said.

SA Water senior media relations manager Joshua Zugajev said the eel in the video would be most likely to make its way into the stormwater network.

“(The network) is entirely separate from the water and sewer networks, and it will hopefully let him travel out to sea and have some fun,” he said.

Mr Zugajev said the separation between the networks meant there was no chance the eel could make its way into a toilet.

Last year, an amateur wildlife photographer captured an eel’s attempt to escape from inside a bird that ate it alive.

The eel did not survive the attempt.