Chaos on the cockle beds

00AM Saturday February 16, 2008
By Mike Rose

If you are fisher or shellfish gatherer in or around the Auckland region, now might be a good time to start to worry.

Ever since we humans first came to live in this abundant area, we have enjoyed a wide variety of fish and shellfish, often literally at our feet.

On many of the region's beaches, large populations of the humble cockle have provided a rich and incredibly easy-to-harvest food source. All one needed to do was wait for the low tide, wander out to the beds and simply pick them up. Not hard at all.

Not only were these beds prolific and generously spread throughout the entire region, they were hardy, too. For generations, they supported local communities, never seeming to diminish in any significant way. Of course, as communities grew and expanded and private transport made us more mobile, this wonderful resource came under more pressure.

Recognising that, despite appearances, these beds were not infinite, we sensibly decided to limit the amount each person could take. The idea was to set the limit high enough so it was still worth the effort to collect them but low enough to ensure there was enough for us all, both now and into the future.

It is, of course, a simple and effective way of managing a freely available but limited resource. All it requires is good sense and the knowledge to set the limit at the right level and for all of us to do our part by sticking to it.

Unfortunately, it is now obvious that significant sections of our community don't get this plan. Well, to be fair, they do get the bit about the resource being easy to get and free; they simply don't get the bit about it being limited and us all having to share it. And it appears that these "greedies" are growing in both number and in their determination to take as much of this limited resource for themselves as they can.

Example: Anniversary Monday; a fine day combined with a low tide at popular Cockle Bay, near Howick. Fishery officers patrolling the beach estimate that some 1500 people are gathering cockles. They also estimate that the number of those gatherers sticking to the "50 cockles per person gathering" limit is somewhere so close to zero that it doesn't matter.

These fishery officers and the dedicated local volunteers who assist them (known as HFOs or Honorary Fishery Officers) do their best to stem the tide. Their task is nigh impossible.

All are experienced and hardened but what they experience that day shocks even them. In the worst case any of them can remember (and some have been fishery officers for a very long time), they check a woman who has been collecting with her 14-year-old daughter and 8 year-old son. Between them the three are entitled to 150 cockles; a reasonable amount and surely enough for a good feed.


Instead they find this woman, who was still collecting when she was stopped, had an unbelievable 3594 cockles. Her haul filled three big laundry baskets and was some 68 times her legal limit!

While the worst, this is by no means the only horror story from that day; or indeed any of the other days fishery officers or HFOs have patrolled this beach, or any of the others with accessible cockle beds.

Groups of these cockle plunderers are now turning up at the beaches with big gas barbecues, gathering large numbers of cockles and having a party, complete with large amounts of alcohol. After a while, empty cockleshells and dead beer bottles litter the ground, interspersed with live (or, more accurately, dying) cockles they have been too lazy or too drunk to cook up. And good luck to the fishery officer or HFO who tries to check if the limits have been followed.

This article started by saying that fishers and shellfish gatherers should be worried and here's why. After appearing impervious to the ravages of these plunderers, the cockle beds are starting to show the effects. And, as so often happens with these natural disasters, the effects are not gradual, they are dramatic.

Example: at Umupuhia or Duders Beach (another south-eastern beach popular with the plunderers) the results are alarming. After years of showing no noticeable depletion, the cockle count per square metre has more than halved in the past two years; from a healthy 30 to just 12. The size of the cockles has diminished considerably, too.

That rate of decline will not be easily reversed and is a source of considerable concern to the local marae. They have enjoyed these cockle beds for generations and are now faced with the very real fear that they could disappear.

They are considering a rahui or ban for the beach but that is no guaranteed solution. Not only would it simply put more pressure on surrounding beaches, it would be difficult to enforce.

After all, if the plunderers don't take any notice of bag limits why would they observe a rahui?

The ministry would no doubt do its best to enforce it but, like the cockle beds, its resources are finite, too.

There are no easy answers but there are plenty of reasons to worry. These shellfish beds are also an important food source for snapper and other local fish.

And, as we continually learn, taking away a vital part of the food chain is likely to have disastrous consequences on the rest of the ecosystem.