Oyster scare advances up country
A deadly parasite threatening to wipe out the country’s best oysters could be back in Marlborough, where it was first detected.
Flat oyster farms will be pulled from Marlborough waters to prevent the parasite Bonamia ostreae from returning to its source of origin.
The Ministry for Primary Industries has ordered the removal of 10 farms in the Marlborough Sounds after the oyster parasite was discovered on Stewart Island last month.
The spread of the parasite has been considered a serious threat to flat oysters, also known as Bluff oysters, since it was found in the Marlborough and Nelson areas in 2015.
It is feared wild oysters in Bluff could be wiped out if the infection reaches Foveaux Strait, and millions of oysters are to be moved from Big Glory Bay on Stewart Island.
Marlborough farmers will also be forced to remove all flat oysters as a precaution after receiving notice from the ministry on Monday.
Tio Point Oysters co-owner Bruce Hearn had been growing flat oysters, along with paua and mussels, for more than 30 years in the Marlborough Sounds.
The call to remove oysters from the waters in Marlborough had taken his team by surprise, Hearn said.
‘‘I understand on Stewart Island, but here? We’re very, very disappointed,’’ he said. ‘‘This is unprecedented.’’
Hearn attended a meeting with other oyster farmers and ministry officers to discuss the impact of the notice yesterday.
The notice, issued under the Biosecurity Act, required each farmer to develop a harvesting and processing plan to remove flat oysters from their farms.
A ministry spokesman said the plans had to be approved and carried out under their supervision.
The meeting yesterday included discussion on how farmers could apply for compensation for any losses, he said.
If the flat oysters were at harvest age they could be harvested for consumption, the spokesman said.
‘‘Although this will be a commercial decision by individual farmers. There may be many that are not suitable for sale and these oysters will have to be destroyed,’’ he said.
There was no food safety issue from eating oysters with Bonamia ostreae, he said.
Flat oyster farming in Marlborough was confined to three operators over 10 farms.
The farms were based in Port Underwood and Oyster Bay in Tory Channel.
The ministry could not say how many oysters were at these farms.
Greenshell mussels and rock oysters were not affected by Bonamia ostreae, but could carry and transmit it to flat oysters.
But the risk of spread was low through these shellfish, the spokesman said.
‘‘This is a precautionary measure. It will reduce the chance of the parasite spreading elsewhere in New Zealand.’’ introduced him to hard drugs.
At first it was speed – until methamphetamine, or P, became the drug of choice.
Meth gave Steven an intense feeling of euphoria, which would last up to 18 hours before hitting a plateau – and crashing.
Psychosis, rage and despair came quickly, driving him to find his next hit. ‘‘I had found my chemical god.’’ Within a year he had spent all his money. He turned to crime including stealing, burglary and drug dealing.
He started using opiates to manage the effects of meth. ‘‘I stayed stuck in that horrible world for a long time.’’
Treatment programmes, including four years on methadone, did not address mental health issues that led him to addiction in the first place, Steven said.
While coming off methadone, Steven quit taking meth and embarked on a professional counselling diploma with the New Zealand Institute of Counselling.
He moved to Christchurch for a new start and began counselling, but a relapse into alcohol addiction landed him in prison.
That was in 2013, when he was caught driving the wrong way along a one-way section of Cambridge Tce with his lights off.
‘‘I ended up with my ninth drink driving conviction and in jail – completely embarrassed as an addiction counsellor.’’
He spent eight months in prison for the offence. Behind bars, he found a drug recovery model used widely in the US, which recognised people with drug dependency often battled mental health disorders at the same time as addiction.
Known as dual diagnosis and treatment, it was a revelation. Steven applied it to his own situation.
Since his release Steven has been sober. He finished with methadone four-and-a-half years ago and has not touched P for seven years.
Now 56, he runs a not-for-profit counselling and addiction recovery service for methamphetamine addicts, which he set up in 2014. The Dual Recovery Network is based at The Loft in Eastgate Mall.
But his stable, healthy life has come at great personal cost – and after a drawn out cycle of recovery and relapse.
‘‘It’s a miracle to think of where I’ve come from, to get through that, to be where I am now, with the damage I’ve done to my brain.
‘‘You can recover, you can do this . . . we have to manage our illnesses, our mental health, addictions. It’s a dual process.
‘‘We’re not bad people. We do some bad things, but it doesn’t define us.’’
Mark Steven