The large, sand-burrowing shellfish known as toheroa made such good eating (usually as a soup) that New Zealanders consumed them faster than the species could breed. From 1932 until 1993 the government imposed restrictions on harvesting, but these measures were not enough to halt the decline. When it was legal to harvest toheroa, thousands of New Zealanders would descend onto west coast beaches to dig for the elusive shellfish. This scene was photographed at Ninety Mile Beach in 1959. Listen to Mrs A. Harding describe how the influx of cars led to the demise of toheroa.
Transcript
And the first thing you do, any family going out to camp, perhaps for a few days, the first thing you'd do would be someone would take a kerosene tin down to the tide mark you see and dig a great tin of toheroas. We used to fish, used to take the nets in the surf and fish constantly. But whether the fishing was good or fishing was bad you could always depend on toheroas. Well now, since the since the influx of motor traffic and it's made it possible for people to come as far as Hamilton or from Wellington. They've come in big lorries and I don't know whether just how much this has affected them but they used to just take the toheroas just in the most ruthless and the quickest way they could get them. I've heard of one man who had a small plough there and ploughed them up.
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Reference: 27628
Image: Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira, H539
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