Te Uu - Traditional Kiribati Eel Trap

Kiribati fishermen have a traditional way of catching moray eels. This is done by building a trap called ‘te Uu’. Eel fishing with traps is one of the oldest traditional methods of fishing still practiced in Kiribati today. Te Uu eel trap is made of shoots and slim branches of a salt bush called iron wood (Pemphis acidula) bound with coconut-fibre cord, rectangular, house-shaped, with pitched roof slightly higher in front; round opening in front wall; and two holes at the bottom. The circular entrance in the front of the traps runs about three-quarters of the length of the trap and narrows gradually. Beyond its end, bait is placed. The eel swims in and passes out of the circular tube into the confines of the trap and strangely enough never realizes it cannot get out the way it came. Instead it remains in the area surrounding the tube until the fisherman draws up the trap and lifts the captive out through a little door on the top. These house-shaped traps are unique to Kiribati and it takes about four days to build. Every fishermen has his own ideas and little secrets as to what type of bait to use and how to prepare it. The trap is dropped down in the sea usually near corals and left in the water and retrieved the next day. Upon retrieval of the eel trap, great care must be taken when handling these vicious eels as their jaws are extremely sharp and powerful. The eel trap is a testimony of the ingenuity of these sparsely coral atolls and the Kiribati men are fishermen par excellence, who have mastered a great variety of techniques throughout the generations. These skills are still the main basis for the survival in the low infertile coral islands making up the Republic of Kiribati comprising the Gilberts, the Line and the Phoenix islands group and Banaba Island.