HOST OF DEAD TOHEROAS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21120, 1 March 1932, Page 8

HOST OF DEAD TOHEROAS.

MILLIONS UPON BEACH* WARNING BY SCIENTIST. . 4 A warning that the presence of millions of dead toheroas on the Ninety-Mile Beach may cause such pollution as to make the remaining shellfish dangerous for use as food was uttered yesterday by Mr. A. W. B. Powell, conehologisj of the Auckland War Memorial Museum, who visited the beach as a member of a research party from the museum.

"Fion; a section of the beach, I estimated that there were about 15,000,000 dead toheroas, while those that were alive were in a starved condition," Mr. Powell said. "Some reports have ;been circulated that the shellfish's syphons have been mutilated by fish coming inshore during calm weather, but I saw nothing to substantiate these statements. In all the specimens I saw tlx* syphons were intact."

Advancing a theory to account for the heavy mortality, Mr. Powell said that in the summer months, the offshore wind kept the plankton, on which the toheroas fed, away from the beach. The death rate was particularly severe among the adult toheroas. "There is a possibility that with such masses of decaying shellfish, the pollution may be such as to make it dangerous to eat the toheroas under-present conditions," Mr. Powell concluded.