TLAW hosting 'Invasive Gold Clam' update - Waiora House 5.15 pm Thursday 19th June
This is a follow up to our November 2024 forum (co-hosted by REAP) which was well attended. We know there is a high level of concern and interest in the community with the issue.
We have Danielle Kruger (WRC), Danielle Kruger (NIWA presenting again at our June 19 forum. NIWA Stopping the Gold Clam Research Programme Issue 1: June 2025 Programme Update:
We are also hearing from our local front line educators Kids Greening Taupō (KGT), about their invasive gold clam education experiences. Here is Taupō News reporter Chris Marshall’s article and interview with Rachel Thompson from KGT on the topic:
Working to avoid an invasive clam nightmare
Invasive clams may not be causing everyone sleepless nights, but they have for Kids Greening Taupō lead education co-ordinator Rachel Thompson.
Accompanying a school camp to Lake Karapiro and realising there was no information presented to the students about how to clean their togs and gear afterwards was a real source of concern.
Corbicula fluminea was found in the Bob’s Landing area of the Waikato River near Lake Karāpiro in May 2023. Later, it was also found in the Waikato River from Lake Maraetai Landing to Tuakau.
“I ended up talking to the kids about it, then when I came home I had a sleepless night because those 62 children from a local school… had been swimming, paddle boarding, they had been in the water in their clothes, shoes, everything and they were coming back on the Friday to do the Ironkids Triathlon on the Saturday.”
Knowing a pair of damp togs would be enough to inadvertently transfer the pest from the Waikato River to Lake Taupō was “a terrifying moment.”
Other parents on the camp had been asking her ‘How how come we don't know about this?’ said Thompson, “‘There needs to be more education’, and I was saying ‘yeah there needs to be more education’ and then I realised I’m the environmental educator so came back and had a bit of a realisation that actually someone needs to be going around the schools.
“The Kids Greening Taupō kaupapa is that if we can get the messaging to the kids, then they will get the messaging to their families which is the easiest way to get it to the community.”
Discussions with organisations including Tūwharetoa Māori Trust Board, Waikato Regional Council and Biosecurity New Zealand resulted in the creation of a series of student friendly resources including printable wordfinds, crosswords and worksheets as well as an online information resource on the KGT website.
That has been followed by visits to as many schools as possible in Tūrangi and Taupō.
“All it would take is for one person to go swimming at Mangakino or boating or paddleboarding… and then come back without cleaning their gear appropriately or without drying their togs or their wetsuit.”
The juvenile clams are invisible to the naked eye, Thompson said, and once the self-fertile molluscs reach a reproductive stage, they can produce 400 to 500 babies a day.
“So it's quite terrifying when you think about it. It's that drying things for 48 hours that's the most important.”
And she is still noticing plenty of adult helpers at her sessions surprised they don’t know more themselves.
“They come up afterwards to say ‘Oh my gosh I didn’t know about that, I'm going home to tell my family.’”
Part of Thompson’s presentations involve stressing the difference between the freshwater native mussel kākahi (Echyridella menziesi) and the invasive clam.
“We've got people removing kākahi from the lakes at Whakamaru and Taupō because they think that they're invasive clams and reporting them and putting messaging out there on Facebook… so that’s led to quite a lot of false news. A lot of people think we have clams in the lake which we don't – they’ve seen kākahi.”
More resources here:
https://niwa.co.nz/freshwater/stopping-gold-clam-its-now-or-never/about-clam