Wairoa community invited to take part in tuna consumption survey to understand food safety risks  

People in the Wairoa region are being asked to complete a tuna consumption survey so that food safety researchers better understand the potential human health risks from toxins accumulating in tuna and other wild-caught species.

Whakakī Lake Trust, the New Zealand Food Safety Science and Research Centre and Cawthron Institute have been working together on a joint project funded by the government’s Vision Mātauranga research fund since 2022 to try and address the food safety risk of toxic tuna.

Richard Brooking of Whakakī Lake Trust said Whakakī Lake sometimes experiences blooms of toxic algae (cyanobacteria) which can lead to toxins accumulating in tuna (eels) and other wild-caught species harvested from the lake.

“This causes concern for our people who traditionally consume tuna harvested from the lake and prevents us from extending manaaki to our manuhiri in our customary way,” Brooking said.

The survey is being delivered by Cawthron’s Chief Science Officer and food safety expert Dr Cath McLeod, who says it will help researchers and the Trust understand tuna consumption patterns in the Wairoa region and whether the concentrations of toxins found in tuna pose a risk to people’s health.

“We really need to know what proportion of people consume tuna, how frequently they consume it, and how much they consume to be able to protect them effectively,” McLeod said.

McLeod said they are also collecting information on other wild-caught aquatic species that people harvest and consume from lakes and rivers in the region, to better understand whether further research is needed on these.

The survey is confidential and voluntary, and the data is not being used to track tuna harvesting or tuna abundance.

Residents will be receiving the survey by mail, and it can also be completed online using a link provided on the survey form.