Don't eat pipi washed up on beaches

Millions of pipi dying on Waitarere and Hokio Beaches.

People are being warned not to eat shellfish from Waitarere, Hokio and surrounding beaches in Horowhenua after millions of dead and dying pipi washed up on the shores on Thursday.

The cause of their deaths is still a mystery. The same phenomenon also happened on Waihi Beach last week and in Whangarei in 2015.

The tuatua shellfish on Waihi Beach were believed to have suffocated after torrential rain, but Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is yet to receive test results.

The pipi population in Whangarei harbour slumped from 10,000 tonnes to less than 100 tonnes, possibly the result of poisoning by a naturally occurring compound from pine acting like a pesticide.

Horizons Regional Council pollution duty officer Hamish Sutherland said the team was first alerted to the shellfish by a caller on Friday morning, however there was no reason to believe the huge numbers of dead and dying shellfish were the result of anything other than a natural phenomenon.

"At this stage there is no obvious source of pollution so our main concern is the public collecting the shellfish with the intention of eating them, which we do not want," said Sutherland.

MidCentral Public Health Service Medical Officer Dr Rob Weir said that cooking shellfish washed up on the beach does not make them safe to eat.

"Warning signs were erected at the beaches on Friday afternoon by Public Health. Further investigations will be taken to find out what is causing the shellfish deaths, which could take some weeks."

The alert covers between Waitarere Beach in the north to Hokio Beach in the south, but people are also warned not to eat shellfish washed up on beaches outside this area.

A multi-agency investigation is underway between MPI, Horowhenua District Council and Horizons Regional Council.

A Horizons representative told Horowhenua Chronicle that MPI would be testing the pipi but when MPI were contacted on Monday, they were unaware of it.

Hokio Beach resident and kaumatua for local iwi Muaupoko Peter Huria said that it was a devastating tragedy to see the fisheries in this state.

"I'm worried about how the population will bounce back after such a loss," he said. "This has happened before but last time we only lost a few hundred. It wasn't anywhere near the scale of today's loss."

Huria said he will be keeping a close eye on the reason for deaths. He believed it was closely linked with the Manawatu River and Hokio Stream pollution.

"Surely this isn't a natural occurrence," he said. "I believe it is land based pollutants running into those pipi beds."