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Wild oysters are still on the menu as the rāhui in the Foveaux Strait is unlikely to affect business operations.
A rāhui will be placed in the relatively small area of the Foveaux Strait where Bonamia ostreae was first discovered in wild oysters.
Biosecurity New Zealand Director Dr Cath Duthie was in Southland on Friday, less than a day after the parasite was detected during routine surveillance.
Duthie met with representatives from Ngāi Tahu and commercial oyster gatherers at the Environment Southland offices, where there was unanimous agreement that a rāhui should exist until the scope of the raid could be determined, he said.
Official legal checks will be released in the coming days to ensure the space is not disturbed, Duthie said.
READ MORE:
* Report: Farming in Big Glory Bay presents unacceptable risk to Bluff oysters in the Foveaux Strait
* The parasite that decimated the southern oyster industry may never be eradicated
* Wild oyster infected with Bonamia ostraeae found in Big Glory Bay
Bonamia ostreae has only been in New Zealand since 2015 and while it poses no harm to humans, it does kill oysters, potentially in large numbers.
The infection was found in three wild oysters during routine biannual testing that had been conducted since the parasite was detected in Big Glory Bay in 2017. No infection was found at the other five sampling sites.
Business operations would continue as normal in the Strait, as the affected area was only a couple of nautical miles wide in an area that had not been fished in the past five years, Duthie said.
The rāhui would cover the area about four to five nautical miles east of Saddle Point on Rakiura / Stewart Island, he said.
It helped that the area had a small population of oysters and it hadn’t been dredged, which would increase the risk of spread, Duthie said.
It would be a few weeks before more test results would appear, after which Biosecurity New Zealand could decide next steps in partnership with local operators, he said.
Duthie acknowledged that there was great concern in the community and said that wild oysters from the Foveaux Strait were a fundamental part of Southland’s identity.
John Hawkins / Stuff
Farmed oysters infected with Bonamia ostreae were unloaded at Bluff from the Foveaux Freighter under the supervision of MPI in 2017. Farmed oysters wrapped in plastic were unloaded.
But the unique species in their unique environment meant that it was difficult to predict how Bonamia ostreae would affect the fishery.
Oysters normally grow in rivers and estuaries, not in dynamic ocean currents.
Duthie didn’t want to speculate what the find would mean for the oyster industry.
“We don’t know much more than a small detection,” he said.
In June 2020, Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) director of biosecurity preparedness and response, John Walsh, warned that the disease was unlikely to be eradicated from Stewart Island after being brought to the island from Marlborough Sounds. .
Bonamia ostreae caused widespread devastation on the island in 2017 and MPI made the decision to remove all oyster farms in Big Glory Bay to protect wild oysters in the Strait.
Microscopic parasites could lie dormant and spread by ocean currents, so there was always a chance they would make their way into wild fisheries, Duthie said, although everyone had hoped it wouldn’t.
