Toheroa Project For Scouts Suggested

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30480, 30 June 1964, Page 3

Toheroa Project For Scouts Suggested

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL, June 29. , People in hospitals and: other institutions should be ! provided with toheroas; it i would be a good project for a group like the Roy Scouts to dig toheroas for folk in hospital and other institutions, said Mr J. A. Te Au, of Tuatapere today. Mr Te Au is an honorary ranger who has spent many years studying and experimenting with the shellfish. Organisations running these institutions could obtain a special Marine Department permit, said Mr Te Au Prospects were not good for this year’s season which would begin on Wednesday. Mr Te Au said. He estimates Southland’s toheroa population is at least

one-third lower than it was last season. He said the toheroas this year seemed to have moved to deeper water, probably as a result of faulty digging on the part of toheroa hunters. Toheroa hunters should be required to pay a licence fee, just like fishermen and the toheroa season should not clash with the oyster season, said Mr Te Au.

He said the money raised by the licence fees could be payable to the Marine Department and used by the department for feeding of and research into toheroas. He said people came well over 100 miles to Southland's toheroa beds and got them for nothing, where oystermen operating out of Bluff paid heavy licence fees.