Meet Luna !

This morning we collected a very special new member of the Somerset Eel Recovery Project team: Luna, our giant eel puppet!

Luna was made by Nancy and Laura. Her body is a frame of withies, and her skin is built from leftover, scrap and recycled fabrics. She has a deep teal back, a mottled belly of greens, browns and hessian, a silvery corded tail, and a big round eye that will watch the crowd! Nothing new was bought to make her. That suits an animal that has made the most of our rivers and rhynes for millions of years. Thank you both. She's wonderful.

Luna will join us at some of our events over the coming months, so watch this page to find out where she'll be next, and you will get to see her with the rest of her body and tail!

WHY A GIANT PUPPET?

Eels are very hard to see. They live hidden in mud and weed, mostly move at night, and travel thousands of miles to the Sargasso Sea and back without anyone watching. Most people have never seen a live eel, which makes it hard for them to care about one. A puppet held up above the crowd gives the eel a presence people can't miss.

We hope children will run up to her, adults stop to ask what she is, and for people to take photos and share them. Every conversation that starts with "What on earth is that?" is a chance to tell the eel's story. We feel a character with a name is much easier to love than a statistic!

WILLOW AND EELS GO BACK A LONG WAY

Luna's withy frame continues a very old local tradition. Willow has been cut and used on the Levels for as long as people have lived here. Fragments of willow basket were found near Glastonbury Lake Village, and willow was used to build several Iron Age causeways. In the 1930s, over 9,000 acres of willow were grown commercially on the Levels.

For centuries, willow was also used to catch eels. Woven willow eel traps were set in rivers across Britain, and they had many local names: "eel pot" in Norfolk, "putcher" in Gloucestershire, "grig" in Sussex, the Fens and along the Severn, and "hive" in Cambridgeshire.

If you see Luna at an event, please come and say hello, take a photo and tag us. Did your family once catch eels or work with withies? We'd love to hear your stories in the comments.