Waikato stream 'healthy', but investigation continues into koura deaths

Friday, 20 January 2017

Waikato Regional Council said the stream is now supporting a healthy ecosystem, but they have yet to figure out reason behind the koura deaths.

Waikato Regional Council staff are confident the stream in Putaruru where dead koura were found late last year is now supporting a healthy ecosystem.

However, they are yet to determine the cause of death for the freshwater crayfish.

The Oraka Stream in Putaruru had dead koura floating downstream in December last year.

On Friday, council staff were on site at the Oraka stream. They reported spotting healthy koura and other aquatic life, including eel and trout.

Investigation and incident response manager Patrick Lynch said it is fantastic to see the stream that appears to have completely recovered from whatever occurred in December.

* Freshwater stream's dying crayfish**

But he said staff were determined to find out exactly what happened and ensure it does not happen again.

'We'll now be conducting tests on the bodies of koura collected from the stream to try to establish whether their death is linked to water quality, or some other cause.'

On December 20, 2016, 'thousands' of dead koura were seen floating downstream in what appears to have been an isolated, short-term event.

Council said they carried out extensive searches and took a large volume of water samples on the day and the following days. The final analysis of the water samples was completed this week.

But Lynch said the final results of those tests won't be through for some weeks.

'The council has taken this incident very seriously with staff on site over five consecutive days late last year, and a science and incident response team there today.

'We'd welcome any more information from the public over this incident.'

The council's investigations team is available on 0800 800 401.