DYING TOHEROAS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 958, 29 April 1930, Page 9

DYING TOHEROAS

DANGER TO CANNING INDUSTRY INVESTIGATION TO BE MADE Special to THE SI X KAITAIA. Today. Consternation is reigning among all whose livelihood depends to a greater or less extent upon the presence of the succulent tohero on the Ninety Mile Beach. Members of the canning industry, and Maoris who depend upon the toheroa as a staple food, have noticed with alarm that the shellfish are coming to the surface of the sand, opening, and dying in large quantities. Eighteen years ago the beach beds were almost ruined by the death of large quantities of toheroas. and there appears to be a danger of the same thing happening this year. The Kaitaia Chamber of Commerce has reported the happening to the Minister of Marine, and has requested that an officer of the fisheries Department be sent to investigate and report. It is considered locally that the absence of westerly or south-easterly winds has prevented the marine organisms on which the shellfish feed from being blown ashore. Thus they are starving to death. ANOTHER THEORY When the theory contained in the message from Kaitaia was referred to Mr. A. W. B. Powell, of the Auckland Institute, he said that the reason given for the death of the toheroas could not be other than a speculation. Toheroas, he said, feed on microscopic animal matter held suspended in sea water, and he saw no reason why it should not be present all the time, whatever the state of the wind. If the shellfish became infected with a disease, they died in large quantities, thus protecting the beds from a further spread of the infection, but comparatively little was known about such diseases, and the presence of infection or the absence of food could not bo determined unless a microscopic examination were made of the sea water at the Ninety Mile Beach. Mr. Powell considered that the most likely explanation of the death of the toheroas was that the wind from the land was blowing dry sand on to the beach, thus forcing the shellfish out of their natural beds, and causing them to die. From observations made at Muriwai Beach, he had found that few toheroas could be found when a land breeze was blowing. The soft dry sand sifted down from the uppper parts of the beach, and filled up the holes made by the toheroas. They then retreated farther out, returning when the wind blew from the sea once more. “If a land breeze has continued to blow on the Ninety Mile Beach, and the toheroas have been forced farther down from the upper parts of the sence from their natural beds may have brought about their deaths,” he concluded. MOVING NORTH? Toheroas are a characteristic of the west coast of North Auckland and are plentiful, notably at Muriwai, Rangatira and Ninety Mile beaches. They are found at the extremity oz the North Island at Spirits Bay and Tom Bowline Bay and, infrequently, on east coast beaches. An Auckland motorist, who recently noticed the scarcity of tube -oas on the lower part of Ninety Mile Beach, gained the explanation from the Maoris tha.t the shellfish were not actually dying out, but were moving northward on account of changes in the nature and the moisture content of the beach. The Maoris were appreciative of the quality of toheroas. So great was their pride when they introduced enamoured pioneers to the shellfish that they invented at least one legend giving themselves the credit for endowing New Zealand with toheroas. There is a North Auckland story that th** Maoris brought toheroas to New Zealand and planted them in the beaches.