10 year old daughter has a question...

[ant7jen]

My daughter wants to know if you can bring home seashells from the beach (back to the US). She wants to take them to school and show her friends.

Also, we plan to visit NZ sometime soon and wanted to know a good beach just for collecting seashells.

[gil]

According to signs on local beaches here, you can't take them off the beach, let alone overseas! Not sure about best beaches though....here we have Cockle Bay and Eastern Beach which have beautiful shells....over to the rest of NZ....

Gil

[Incognito]

What belongs to the beach, stays on the beach (or so I'm told by my Kiwi friends)

[Sam B]

Well she wouldn't be the first person to take a few shells off the beach, and I'm sure she won't be the last. There were lovely shells on the East coast of the Coromandel, and we found some lovely paua shells on the beaches at Stewart Island. All the locals were selling them as well, so they obviously aren't as scrupulous as some about whether to take shells off the beach or not. Happy hunting!

[Spooky]

The closet marine conservationist in me says "Take only memories; leave behind only footprints". As a diver, I appreciate how every organic item from the sea goes back to the sea in one way or other; coral communities are formed this way too.

Having said that, I know that if it's a marine park or a protected beach, you cannot remove anything. I am not sure if this rule applies to non-protected beaches.

[JandM]

I can see from where I'm sitting (in our house in the UK) a little cache of NZ things, which include a paua shell, a green-lipped mussel shell, and some of the little spiral ones from Piha beach, with a tiny bit of sparkly black sand inside. They do my heart good. Sorry about the rules.

[Sam B]

I often remove several bits of plastic from the beach, and any other litter. It's swings and roundabouts I reckon.

[SarahEDH]

I brought NZ shells back in to the U.S. through LAX -- I'd guess the rules are consistent. I had shells, driftwood pieces, rocks, seaglass . . . Customs didn't blink. On the declarations card you fill out on the airplane, I made a notation about "shells, wood" in the space next to "Other", since I figured these are agricultural/biological products. I wasn't even asked about them. (The woman in line behind me, though, had one undeclared mango in her luggage and was fined US$300 on the spot. One mango.)

My first Kiwi landlord had paua shells and all kinds of beach treasures decorating both the inside and outside of the property, and you do see local people picking things up. I guess if NZ had a larger population, each person's beachcombing would add up to greater harm, but at present I haven't seen it as an issue where I've been.

The beach between Eastbourne and Pencarrow lighthouse often has paua shells, usually in small piles indicating that someone has cleaned their catch (I think 10 is the daily limit?). Since they could keep the shells if they wanted to, it seems to me that others could pick them up without breaking rules or impacting the ecology -

[Jo Jo]

As far as I know, some beaches are protected, and you're not allowed to remove any shells or anything else from them, but others aren't, and you are allowed to take shells. There are signs on most beaches telling you what rules apply. But you should check with customs in the States as well, as some countries don't allow you to bring seashells in from other countries.

EDIT: just seen SarahEDH's post - it looks like taking sea shells into the states isn't a problem, so good luck with your beach-combing.

[migratory birds]

Hmmm, truly never saw a single sign asking to leave shells on the beach and I understand the importance of those minerals returning to the local ecology as the shells break down (but never thought of it before you mentioned it).

That said, we had no problem bringing shells from our beachcombing in NZ back into the US. We declared them. US customs were very sweet about it as if truly understanding what it means to be a kid and the value of those shells to a young person. May have been the first time I've ever seen a US customs officer smile!