Sea slug study can't find cash

The poisonous slugs that closed Auckland beaches last year may be found nationwide. Photo / Greg Bowker

Toxic sea slugs could be living in the waters around New Zealand but money to study them is proving harder to find than the slugs themselves.

A toxic slug of the type that killed several dogs in Auckland last year - albeit much less toxic - was found in Nelson and a lead researcher says they are probably in the waters between Tapu in the Coromandel and Devonport, and possibly around the country.

Pleurobranchia maculata, the slug that killed dogs in Auckland and Coromandel with a potent neurotoxin known as ttx, lives in the waters off both islands of New Zealand but nobody knows if all the slugs are toxic or why they were suddenly linked to dog deaths.

Every slug tested so far has been positive for ttx, all but one of them from Auckland.

The Auckland Regional Council and several other agencies involved in a joint response to the beach scare want the Government to pay for research to find out if the problem is nationwide.

But the Ministry for the Environment says it is a local problem, and any long-term monitoring should be developed by councils with the Ministry of Health and New Zealand Food Safety Authority.

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health said toxins in the marine environment were a problem for the Environment Ministry and it was they who should be approached for funding.

Meanwhile, the ARC said that because of the cost involved, it and others on the joint agency response team would continue to seek money from the Government.

The joint agency response includes representatives from local councils, MAF Biosecurity, the Department of Conservation and the Auckland Regional Public Health Service.

No humans have been hurt by the potentially deadly toxin, and no dog deaths have been reported since September 30.

Nelson scientist Paul McNabb, who helped pinpoint the slugs as the cause of the poisoning, said surveys at Devonport found the slugs appeared to have stopped washing up on the beach.

There were still plenty in chest-deep water when two snorkellers checked on November 18.

Mr McNabb said his colleagues at the Cawthron Institute flew 20 slugs back to Nelson that day, tested one and found it was still highly toxic.

He said it was unlikely that the presence of toxic slugs stopped between Narrow Neck and Tapu.

The company is funding its own research to find out whether the slugs are born toxic or if they take the poison from somewhere in the environment.

Slug eggs are toxic but researchers have not yet figured out how to keep babies alive long enough to confirm if they make the toxin themselves.

Mr McNabb said the laboratory was unlikely to pay for a survey of slugs around the country without some public funding, adding that it was confusing about where funding for research might come from. He said New Zealand could be at the forefront of research into ttx.

The toxin is found in several species around the world - most famously puffer fish - but experiments have not confirmed where it comes from. "From a New Zealand perspective we are potentially in quite a good position to investigate it because our slugs are abundant."