NURSERIES FOR MUSSELS

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 1011, 30 June 1930, Page 1

NURSERIES FOR MUSSELS

FISHERIES DEPARTMENT’S NEW USE FOR REWA WARNING TO PUBLIC The temptingly, fat, juicy mussels clustering the hull of the old ship Rewa are not to tickle the palates cf Auckland mussel lovers. The Fisheries Department wants the mollusca to restock the depleted beds along the East Coast, beyond Waiwera. And so the Rewa is to be a mussel nursery. The present owner of the hulk has consented to the department using the hull for this purpose. To protect the public against itself, the department has posted a notice warning visitors not to take any of the shellfish from the hull, lest people might be tempted to eat some of the mussels that *he Rewa brought down with her from her moorings in the Waitemata. The warning is in the interests of health as the authorities fear there is a grave danger that the mussels may have become contaminated by harbour filth during the long time the Rewa lav in the Waitemata.

The Fisheries Department has found that the mussel beds, along the East Coast, beyond Waiwera, have been sadly depleted, and although efforts have been made to transplant mussels from Coromandel, the eagerness of boatmen and the people living along the coast to gather the shellfish has thwarted the department’s activities. It is hoped now that the relatively big consignment of mussels brought down by the Rewa from the Waitemata will in a few years restock the depleted beds about the East Coast.