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0800 002 004 | www.nrc.govt.nz Putting Northland first

Number of pages: 02
Date: 14 February, 2013

Multi-agency hunt for marine nasties at Tutukaka

A six-strong multi-agency team is to spend several days later this month surveying the area in and around the Tutukaka marina to make sure some of the country’s most unwanted marine pests have not found their way there.

The Monday February 25 to Friday March 1 survey will be checking for six main biosecurity threats identified by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) – but with a particular focus on Mediterranean fanworm, internationally recognised as a significant marine pest.

Irene Middleton, an aquatic biosecurity officer for the Northland Regional Council, says the regional council is leading the hunt and will have four staff taking part, assisted by one from the Department of Conservation and one from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.

She says in a pleasing result, a similar search of the area in 2010 – led by the MPI – had not located any serious unwanted nasties, however, the regional council believed it was an environmentally high value location which warranted the approximately $5000 outlay it would cost it to effectively repeat the survey.

As well as hunting for Mediterranean fanworm – which had been discovered in Whangarei Harbour last year – the search would also check for Asian clam, Caulerpa seaweed, Chinese mitten crab, European shore crab and Northern Pacific seastar. It would also be looking for any other unusual or unknown marine species there.

Ms Middleton says Mediterranean fanworm is a marine animal typically found in marinas, harbours or sheltered sites, at depths of anywhere between one to 30 metres.

“It consists of a tough, flexible tube – often muddy in appearance and always anchored to a hard surface – which is topped with a single spiral fan. They grow up to 40cm long and the fans are white, banded with brown and orange, and have an orange central stem. Unlike our harmless native fanworms, it’s larger with a single fan.”

Ms Middleton says the survey will cover the area from the marina out to the Tutukaka headland. A dive team would spend a day searching the marina while other parts of the harbour would be surveyed mainly using crab traps and a benthic sledge, similar to a scallop dredge.

She says while a major fishing tournament is due to be based out of the marina around the same time as the survey, the council has worked with marina management and factored that into its planning.

The survey team would be interested to hear from anyone who had seen any unwanted or unknown species in the area and any discovered as part of the survey would be reported to the MPI or the Marine Invasives Taxonomic Service for follow up/identification.

For more information about marine pests, pest animals or plants contact the Northland Regional Council on 0800 002 004 and ask to speak to a biosecurity officer or visit www.nrc.govt.nz/nasties

ENDS

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