Fears for to heroa at Dargaville

Press, 19 February 1987, Page 13

Fears for to heroa at Dargaville

I PA Dargaville Toheroa smuggling may » be thriving on Dargayille’s Ocean Beach be- > cause of a lack of per- ; manent Ministry of Fish- « eries officers, according to local people who have found the shellfish have ‘ been systematically dug up. A group of five came ' across a 500 m-long 1 toheroa bed recently ‘ which had been stripped of the protected shellfish. ! The bed, about 16km south of Glinks Gully, is ; believed to have been the ) last big bed of toheroa on the Dargaville coast. A member of the group, who did not wish to be named for fear of reprisals, said, “The bed ’ had been systematically dug up by shovel, spade, and hand, and must have taken two or three people a couple of hours at least, judging by the size of the bed.” Dargaville’s last fisheries officer, Mr Jim Rudolph, who stopped working for the department full-time last year, said toheroa had been poached when he was working on

the coast. "About five or six years ago there were a huge number of toheroa being taken from the Dargaville coast and taken to Auckland to be sold or raffled in pubs,” Mr Rudolph said.

In a possibly unrelated incident, another DargAville man reported finding nine sacks of toheroa hidden up a stream which flows onto the beach. He emptied the sacks into the surf.

The honorary wildlife ranger, Mr Barry Searle, said the toheroa resource would only have a chance of renewing itself with regular patrols on the coast.

“Huge numbers — up to 6000 or 7000 at a time — are being regularly taken off the beach. These are not being taken by people for food, but on a commercial basis, for sale, probably in Auckland hotels,” he said.

“We used to have three officers — one in the Kaipara Harbour, and two on the coast — but now we have none. “We don’t only need empowered fisheries

officers but some sort of coastal resource management plan which monitors the shellfish and allows for their being thinned and shifted when necessary.”

Mr John Smith, the acting supervisory fisheries officer in the Ministry of (Fisheries at Whangarei, said the policy decision to reinstate a full-time fisheries officer for the Dargaville region had to come from Auckland.

No comment has been available from the Ministry office in Auckland.