Have pippies disappeared from your beaches? Ballina & Evans Head yep.

[ranga7]

It was on the news tonight how pippies have pretty much disappeared from the beaches at Ballina and what they are going to do. Well Evans Head is much the same, years ago i would drive up the beach and they were everywhere, now pretty hard to find if at all. Maybe there hiding somewhere with the slimey mackeral... but seriously its pretty sad, what a great bait.

[stonecold]

Its true mate..I remember them as this as when I was a young bloke. Theres also a bit of a write up in the paper today. Rabbi managed 7...yes 7 pipis last weekend

[The-easyrider]

Last time I was at double Island I could not find a pippi to save myself but the trip befor I did see a family of recent arrivals striping everything off the beach with spoons

[stacer525]

was over north straddie a few weeks ago for a couple of days.
found good numbers at the northern end on the ocean side.

[GABBA110360]

It's a bit scarey to think that the're numbers have gone down that badly.
the old shuffle for a fresh bait on the beach too easy.
I myself coming from ex pro ranks think that the harvest by pro's in the clarence /richmond area may well have been too much for the resourse particularly when
they quickly find efficient ways of extracting them from there hiding spot.
someone developed a market for them and away we go.
all jump on the band wagon !!! bingo! cant catch enough now so find another beach and so on.
i dont know but i suppose it's to fill a demand in the ( late arrival ) market in sydney .
bloody eat anything.
anyway i hope they recover in numbers
ken

[theoldlegend]

Is it a seasonal thing with pippis?

Found heaps of them at Shark Bay at Iluka one day not so long ago, went back a couple of days later and couldn't find any.

TOL

[rabbi]

Yep, we found a hot little patch on south Ballina beach where we absolutely killed the pippis.

7 pippis in an hour and a half.

Not going to say where though cause its my secret spot and I dont want anyone raiding it;)

[Noelm]

plenty of them down my way, however there was a total ban on them for a while because of some sort of parasite in them, they were still there, but eating them was not advised, so they put a total ban on them for some time. Abalone was the same, a worm thing was killing them.

[bondy99]

I know where there is a whole beach full down South, and not telling anyone as the placed will be stripped barren no time. Still great eating too.

[goat boy]

This comes up every year on all beaches in SEQ and NNSW (probably others too but too far away to hear about it). There's been several studies into it, I remember posting a link at one stage to an article (but am too lazy to dig it up now).
Pros and clandestine ops by the likes of the yellow raincoat brigade strip them barren. That said, how many times have you seen the ordinary joe walking around with a bucketful? obviously way more then needed....even worse when you see someone tipping a bucketful out on the waters edge, dead from sitting in fetid warm water for god knows how long. Makes ya angry but then again, seen alot of people at tweed boat ramps recently cleaning obviously undersize Tailor....it's a vicious cycle sometimes.
Don't even bother with pipis anymore, feel too bad except for the odd one that might pop up at your feet.

[Boat Hog]

There is a meeting tonight in Ballina to discuss what can be done about declining pippi stocks;
http://www.ballinaadvocate.com.au/story/2011/08/10/top-speakers-for-pipi-crisis-meeting/


The disappearance of pippis due to a mystery disease has been reported in local newspapers on the Mid North Coast/Northern Rivers lately.

http://www.dailyexaminer.com.au/story/2011/06/21/pipis-fail-to-mature-and-numbers-decline/

One article reports a large die off of the Moon Pippi (the larger of the two common local pipis).

http://www.coffscoastadvocate.com.au/story/2011/06/21/pipis-under-threat-scientist-says-north-coast/

[rexgrunt]

There used to be millions on stockton beach down near newcastle as well as beach worms but they have all been raped and plunded by the tourists.

[deepfried]

I remember them being thick on a few local beaches from Ballina down to jeruselum ck. Last time i tried to find some while fishing was years ago and I had troubles then. Something I have noticed is when we had those really big southerly blows and big seas the last two years the northern end of shelly beach was choca block full of pippie meat that had been smashed by the swell.

[theoldlegend]

We've all had a lot of flooding in SEQ and NNSW over the last six months or so.

I wonder if its got anything to do with that?


TOL

[Slider]

People have been wondering what has happened to the eugaries on the Noosa North Shore for about 10 years now. I notice that these days when they do turn up, that they're collected by anyone who happens to be on the beach at the time with none left a day or 2 later.

I believe it is a combination of factors causing pops to drop. Too many collecting too many eugaries; toxic algaes such as lingbya and fireweed that kill shellfish; drought; vehicles running over juvenile eugaries that sit on the wet sand at the edge of the water. The spraying of noxious weeds on dunes with chemicals that wash down the beach and are absorbed by the eugarie, could also be an issue - have heard of a few instances of large kills of eugarie that coincided with spraying of bitou bush.

If there is a bug affecting them as well, then the outlook for eugaries isn't good. Particularly as the eugarie/pippi of the eastern seaboard are considered to be of a single population and which migrate northwards. A bug in NNSW can affect all populations to the north of and compound the other isues affecting populations.

Ramifications of eugarie pops disappearing are significant. Surf species such as dart and whiting, time their spawning with that of the eugarie so that juvenile fish have juvenile eugaries to eat. All fish that feed close to shore on eugarie and worm such as bream, tarwhine, dart + snub nosed and whiting, are deprived of this food source. Shorebirds such as the pied oyster catcher (eugarie bird) are deprived of their major food source - though I notice on Moreton Island where there is a healthy eugarie bird population, that they are eating insects in the absence of eugaries.

I wouldn't expect the floods to be a factor TOL. If anything, the full swamps at the back of beaches that result from the floods and which seep on to the beach, should increase the eugarie's iron intake which should encourage growth and spawning.

Worm pops on Teewah Beach seem to be fine.

[The_Tub]

i havent been able to get many pippies of late but i have been getting heaps of slimies

[theoldlegend]

Did any of you guys down Ballina way get any feedback from that meeting last Wednesday night? It'd be interesting to hear the possible causes.

At least the greenies can't put it down to boat strikes, fishing line and plastic bags tossed overboard by those terrible boaties in Moreton Bay.


TOL