The life cycle of the numerous eels that inhabit the rivers, streams, lakes, swamps and estuaries of the plains is an epic story. When they reach breeding age, which can be anywhere between five and thirty years, mature eels swim out of the rivers around Australia, including western Victoria and head along the Australian continental shelf to the seas around northern Queensland and Papua New Guinea, where they breed and die. The young eels, called elvers, are transparent and leaf shaped. They take a couple of years to return to the rivers of the south east coast of Australia, Tasmania and New Zealand. Then, usually in early Autumn, they swim up the rivers and even slide across damp ground to find a home in the still fresh waters of lakes and wetlands, including those on the plains. Harvesting these eels was the motivation for the elaborate aquaculture system developed by the Aboriginal tribes around Lake Condah and eels are thought to have been traded widely among Aboriginal groups, forming the basis of a more sedentary society rather than ranging across tribal lands. Eels are still caught and traded now, and exported as far afield as Germany and Korea. The largest eel processing plant in the southern Hemisphere is at Skipton on the Glenelg Highway.
