The poisonous coastal weed 'sea spurge' has made its way to New Zealand beaches and the Department of Conservation is urging people to beware.
Euphorbia paralias is not only detrimental to our coastal environments, it is toxic to both humans and animals and can cause temporary blindness.
To the untrained eye the upright, red-green, herbaceous plants look like regular coastal flora. But the reality is different.
"There are some distinguishing features of this invasive sea spurge," said John Sanson, manager of Biosecurity New Zealand's pest management group.
Since it arrived in 2012, it's been spotted in areas along the west coast of the North and South Islands and most recently on the Kapiti Coast.
It's particularly prevalent at this time of year, arriving on coastal currents from Australia where it has densely covered large areas of their beaches and caused major environmental problems.
"As they've seen in Australia it could smother out our native plant species, could affect the habitat of particularly some bird species," said Sanson.
It also contains a milky-white sap which is toxic to people and animals.
"It's known to cause temporary blindness so you don't want to be touching this plant if you see it," Sanson said. "Certainly no getting it anywhere near your eyes."
Conservationists say the key to preventing the species from establishing itself on our coastline is early detection and they're urging people to report sightings of the hardy European shrub to MPI immediately.
"If they can get an accurate location description, that might be GPS coordinates which is particularly helpful, take a number of photos including close-up photos of the leaves and the flowers and report that through to our pest and disease hotline," Sanson said.
Biosecurity NZ is promising to follow up reports which could prove critical in protecting our coastlines.
