Wairoa: Human health risks from toxins accumulating in eels researched

People in the Wairoa district are being asked to complete a tuna (eel) consumption survey to help food safety researchers better understand the potential human health risks from toxins accumulating in tuna and other wild-caught species.

Lake Whakakī Trust, the New Zealand Food Safety Research Council and Cawthron Institute have worked together on a joint project funded by the Government’s Vision Mātauranga research fund since 2022 to try to address the food safety risk of toxic tuna.

Whakakī Lake Trust chairman Richard Brooking said the lake sometimes experienced blooms of toxic algae (cyanobacteria) that could lead to toxins accumulating in tuna and other species that are harvested.

The trust was granted $2.8 million of funding in 2019 — half from the Freshwater Improvement Fund and half from Hawke’s Bay Regional Council.

Whakakī Lake north of Wairoa sometimes has blooms of toxic algae. Photo / Warren Buckland

Brooking said the potential risk had caused concern for “our people who traditionally consume tuna and morihana (carp) harvested from the lake”.

“It has also prevented us from fulfilling our manaaki commitments to our manuhiri in the customary way.”

The survey is being delivered by Cawthron chief science officer and food safety expert Dr Cath McLeod, who said it would help researchers and the trust understand tuna consumption patterns in the Wairoa district.

The survey would also help researchers understand whether the concentrations of toxins found in tuna posed a risk to people’s health.

“We really need to know what proportion of people consume tuna, how frequently they consume it, and how much they consume to be able to protect them effectively,” McLeod said.

Researchers are looking into the health risks of eel consumption in the Wairoa district. Photo / Paul Morris

McLeod said they would also collect information on other wild-caught aquatic species that people harvest and consume from lakes and rivers in the region, to better understand whether further research was needed on these.

The survey is confidential and voluntary, and the data is not being used to track tuna harvesting or tuna abundance.

Residents will receive the survey by mail over the next fortnight, and it can be completed online or using the form provided.